Bennie Joe Smooth Blowfish Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

Bennie Joe Pipes are made by Bennie Joe, an Indonesian artisan based in Jakarta. A trained architect and part-time pipe-maker for much of his life, he took on the latter full-time after a downturn in the property market during the dark days of 2020 and after. An interesting aspect of Bennie Joe pipes is that they are made primarily with hand tools, rather than many of the woodworking machines pipe-makers employ. While the chambers and draft holes are drilled, the body of the pipe is formed using hand tools, creating genuinely freehand shapes reminiscent of those made in mid-century Denmark. It should come as no surprise that one of Bennie Joe’s heroes is the late, great, Bo Nordh.

The blowfish is a shape whose origins can be found in Danish artisan pipe-making, but whose basic shape has evolved into a family of very different designs over the last few decades. This Bennie Joe, for example, retains much of the tall side-profile of more classical blowfishes, as well as the “fin” shaped shank of modern iterations, while dropping much of the narrowness typically associated with the shape. I guess it could be considered an “inflated blowfish,” as the bowl displays a generally rounder form, one emphasized by the shank’s under-travel. A single furrow in the bowl’s right side adds an extra dimension of asymmetry, adding to the overall design’s strongly organic inclination.

Details:

Length: 5″ / 127.0mm

Bowl Width: 0.89 / 22.60mm

Bowl Depth: 1.21″ / 30.73mm

Weight: 2.3oz / 68g