Xin Li Sandblasted Scoop Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

A graduate of industrial design and art history, Xin Li came to pipe-making by chance, after a mutual friend introduced him to the notable Chinese artisan Yang Zhimin. Xin and Yang quickly developed a rapport, in part because both had attended the prestigious China Academy of Art, and because both had an affinity for woodworking. Yang took Xin on as an apprentice in his workshop and, soon enough, this apprenticeship became a pipe-making partnership. For several years, Yang and Xin worked together in handcrafting pipes under Yang’s Zhiputang make. In 2019, Xin departed from the Zhiputang workshop and the partnership was amicably dissolved, with Xin moving on to create pipes under his own name, while Yang continued with Zhiputang.

I have a mental list of brands and artisans that I would like to bring to MBSD and our customers, similarly to the way most of us have lists of pipes that we would one day like to own for ourselves. Xin Li has been near the top of both of those lists, for me, for quite some time, so I was quite ecstatic when Xin agreed to allow MBSD be one of his retailers. When the pipes arrived, I was even happier, as they were exactly what I had expected after following Xin’s output over the last few years.

This particular pipe belongs to a family of designs that are more contemporary than others in the artisan scene, one that typically goes by the “scoop,” for obvious reasons. And yet this one still manages to carve out a distinct identity for itself amidst the plethora of pipes being made today. On the one hand, it has an organicism that has been pushed to its highest degree by Xin. The result is a bowl that is deliciously plump and round and a more general, subtle asymmetry, including a slight irruption of plateau briar on the pipe’s underside. This, combined with the pipe’s low-slung curvature, the contours of its bamboo shank extension (which include nodes of stabilized tagua nut), and Xin’s unique use of color almost gives the sense of a piece of fruit hanging from a branch. I would go so far as to call it “ripe,” in the many, positive senses of the word.

 

Details:

Length: 4.4″ / 111.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.71 / 18.03mm

Bowl Depth: 1.08″ / 27.43mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 54g