Exhibits and essays in appreciation of Teddy and his pipes |
(Notes for a longer essay: March 2008 draft) by Thomas Looker Teddy Knudsen is one of the great pipe-making virtuosos. His fluid style and fertile imagination combine with a breath-taking yet effortless technique to produce carvings of astonishing natural grace and lyricism. Teddy's work brings to my mind the music of Mozart - another master who could transform the simplest materials into occasions of transcendent beauty. Teddy's skill and imagination as a "reader of briar" are unsurpassed in Europe and perhaps only rivaled in Japan by Tokutomi. Not only can Teddy intuitively see some of the most beautiful shapes within a particular wood block, his creativity and his passion propel him continually to imagine new, more interesting, and more expressive compositions. And because his immense talent is wedded to an amiable and whimsical personality, many of his most stunning pipes are also filled with wit, good humor and fun.
TRADITIONAL TEDDY Teddy's distinctive voice has been recognizable in his briars for many years. Traditional Danish shapes like the Volcano and Bent Brandy become particularly supple in Teddy's hands, as he adds undulating rims, pliable bowls, or quietly twisting or swelling shanks. Teddy takes the sometimes stiff lines of the Elephant's Foot and "revoices" them ... adding deft modulations in panel and bowl that can re-harmonize traditional relationships and create unique rhapsodies of graceful movement.
Teddy has also developed many original designs, such as his famous Conch with its sensuous waves and curls. These lines have been borrowed and improvised upon by carvers around the world, though only a few ever match the easy grace and ineffable charm of Teddy's original versions.
Teddy's trade-mark plateau horns combine fascinating mixtures of texture and form with elongated lines of great elegance and poise.
I’ve often said that the most characteristic aspect of Teddy’s briar carving is that he makes the wood seem to breathe. Sometimes the subtlest variation of line or form can bring a flat or uninteresting shape to life and Teddy’s unerring hand and eye make him the consummate wizard of such magic. TEDDY TODAY As impressive as his output has been throughout his forty years as a pipe-maker, Teddy's latest work has often become revelatory. Teddy appears to have been transported to a new level of insight and understanding about his materials, his craft, and his art. At a time of life when many fine artists and artisans can loose their edge and start repeating themselves, Teddy's creative engine has gone into warp-drive - quite literally, as one of the first groupings of his new creations was partly inspired by his love of Star Trek. Over the past three or four years, Teddy has carved a set of dazzling compositions that break new ground for him personally, and, more generally, for the community of pipe-makers who identify themselves with Danish artisanal traditions. It seems to me that pipes like Alien, Seal, Starweeper, Lamplighter, Ramses Riding an Elephant, and the two humpbacks, Spyhopper and Lobtail, enlarge and enrich the landscape of creative possibility for European carvers.
However we wish to define our terms, Teddy Knudsen's pipes are unquestionably beautiful objects filled with the distinctive personality of their creator. They provide us with occasions to enrich not only our understanding of pipes, but also our responses to other works of craft and art in the world around us. In my own case, I have found that studying pipes by Teddy (and Tokutomi) has provided me with "windows into new worlds of delight." My pleasure and wonder at what I’ve experienced makes me want to rephrase Miranda's famous line in Shakespeare’s The Tempest: "Oh, brave new world, that has such briars in it!" Starweeper
POST SCRIPT: TEDDY (AND TOKU) FOR TOMORROW The new developments in Teddy's work grow primarily out of his own native genius as a craftsman and carver. But Teddy also acknowledges in some recent pieces the influence of the brilliant Japanese carver Tokutomi. For his part, Toku greatly admires Teddy's pipes and has occasionally incorporated into his work "improvised variations" on themes by Teddy. Elsewhere I have suggested that the imaginative affinities I sense between these two briar masters have led them into "improvisational dialogues" with each other. Teddy and Toku have grown out of very different cultural and aesthetic backgrounds and the pipes they make reflect these differences. Yet they share what I might call a transformational vision about briar. Their hands feel an exceptional degree of plasticity in the wood - in its substance, in its grain - that allows them to imagine new dimensions to its expressive potential. Both also seem to derive enormous inspiration from the discipline on form and function imposed by their passion to create smoking pipes that are as well-engineered on the inside as they are beautiful on the outside. Toku's extraordinary use of asymmetry (which can makes briar look like clay) and Teddy's amazingly graceful sense of line and form (which makes the wood seem to breathe) have had a significant influence upon the imaginations of younger pipe-makers, according to what I've seen at pipe shows and on the Internet. It would seem that some of the future directions for briar carving around the world are currently being suggested and conjured up by the virtuosic carvings (and the subtle, imaginative interactions) of these two pipe-making free-spirits, Hiroyuki Tokutomi and Teddy Knudsen. For more on the relationship between Teddy and Toku, see the relevant sections in my article originally published in Pipes and Tobaccos magazine and reprinted in an expanded version in the Pipe Notes section of The Briar Gallery) |
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: ALL TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS ON THIS WEBSITE © 2007, 2008 BY THOMAS LOOKER (EXCEPT WHERE NOTED ON INDIVIDUAL PICTURES). AS A MATTER OF COURTESY AS WELL AS LAW, PLEASE DO NOT DUPLICATE, QUOTE, OR REUSE ANY CONTENT ON THESE PAGES WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: OVER THE COURSE OF SEVERAL YEARS I HAVE RECEIVED INVALUABLE HELP FROM MANY DANISH CARVERS AND ENTHUSIASTS OF DANISH PIPES, INCLUDING TEDDY KNUDSEN, KENT RASMUSSEN, TOM ELTANG, LARS IVARSSON, BO NORDH, AND PER BILLHALL. VERY SPECIAL THANKS ALSO TO SYKES WILFORD OF SMOKINGPIPES.COM WHOSE KNOWLEDGE AND INSIGHT, FRIENDSHIP AND ENCOURAGEMENT, HAVE BEEN ENORMOUSLY HELPFUL TO ME ON MY JOURNEY THROUGH THE LANDSCAPE OF INTERNATIONAL PIPE-MAKING.
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