Deleted

[Gatorade]

gone

[Nick]

I agree whole heartedly. Knudsen, Rasmussen - although more Ann Julie than Kent - and Nordh are the carvers that inspire me. I love to look at their pipes and dream. I love the organic quality of Nordh, and the subtly femine quality Ann Julie shows in her pipes. They are the horizon that I'm sailing toward.

But its carvers like Tyler, Kurt and Random that inspire me to put hand to wood. Nordh, Rasmussen and Knudsen seem like superstars, where as Tyler, Kurt and Random seem like every day folks. Some one you'd meet at the supermarket or say hello too as they walk their dogs down your street.

Both groups have their influence me. Tyler and company make it look real. Attainable. Make me think, "Yea, I can carve a nice pipe." Bo and co. are the stars I shoot for.

[Tyler]

Both groups have their influence me. Tyler and company make it look real. Attainable. Make me think, "Yea, I can carve a nice pipe." Bo and co. are the stars I shoot for.

One fun thing about joining in the pipe making community is getting to know the superstars. Amazingly those guys are human also! Most of them are such down to earth good guys, and being apart of pipe making makes it a little easier to get to know these guys.



As for the influence of the superstars, I think that is an inevitable part of the learning process. I can certainly relate to Gatorade in how he got starting in making pipes. Not being able to afford the pipes you most admire makes one wonder if it is possible to pull it off one's self. (Of course, little do we know that well will be spending thousands on tools!!)

My favorite carvers are headed by the fellows at S. Bang. Their style really jives with me. I have stared at photos of their pipes for hours trying to understand what makes them work. Why do I like them? What little stylistic nuances make Bangs, Bangs?

Some of the pipes Lars Ivarsson makes are also amazing to me. Especially his lang-shanked pipes. The organic flow of them is very appealing.

Likewise many others: Nordh, Chonowitsch, Barbi, Maenz, Eltang, etc..

My thought on mimicing their style has many components. Certainly I hope one day to have a recognizable style of my own. I think that is something that will develop both naturally and willfully. I think making certain moves while creating pipes will, over time, develop into styles that are yours. At the same time I think that one must be pushed into improving. I am beginning a proccess of giving myself assignments of taking an everyday object, and designing a pipe from it. Not in the way that one might take a Coke can and make a Poker with the Coca-Cola logo inscribed upon it. Rather, taking a Coke can and designing something reminiscient of the curly-q'd "C" in the logo. I think the excercise of seeing shapes in other objects, and tanslating them into pipes is good for stretching my creative ability. Between that and simply making pipes, I think one's style will eventually be developed.

That said, along the path of that process it is a great excercise to borrow, and even copy, some of the stylisitic moves of the superstars. I don't think it wise to be the "Tour 18" of pipe making, but certainly making a known shape is a great excercise. I think some carvers lack the ability to make a pipe exactly as they intended it to be from the get go. As such they are weak at making classic shapes. Making classics and borrowing from the masters is something needed to devlop fully as a maker, IMO. I think this is a good excercise because you are taking an intentional shape out of a block. If you lack that ability to pull the shape you want out of a block, then it ultimately shows in your style. The maker that just goes with the flow as he carves tends, IMO, to have a style that is mundane. Think of the makers that have a unique style that you admire. They are NOT just letting the briar tell them what to do. They are in charge. They are very intentional. They are also brilliant at finding the right "partner" for they shapes they want, digging through their pile of blocks until they find the right one.

To come back to the point at little more, I think mimicing the masters is a wise excercise. Becoming baby-Bang or mini-Maenz, by contrast, is not.




Tyler

[bscofield]

wow that is a good question. I don't think it's "wrong" to do that at all! I think that to emulate (as in copy down to the "T") is not something I'd enjoy, but that's just me. It's challenging tho, to stick with your original form from start to finish (like Tyler was saying), it is for me anyway...

Like Tyler and John (and lot's of others) have said, Looking at other pipes is one of the best ways to get a feel for style, design, symmetry, etc. I LOVE looking at these guy's work. I do that, I soke it up then every once in a while I hit the sketch pad and what comes out, comes out. But I am coming from very little experience... I have lots of drawings and few pipes.

Personaly, in the long run, I wouldn't be in it if all I was trying to do is copy another person's design... it'd be too constricting for me. But to learn I think it's a pretty good idea.

[Nick]

I am beginning a proccess of giving myself assignments of taking an everyday object, and designing a pipe from it. Not in the way that one might take a Coke can and make a Poker with the Coca-Cola logo inscribed upon it. Rather, taking a Coke can and designing something reminiscient of the curly-q'd "C" in the logo.

I love to do this too! It is so much fun. I find myself picking up magizines at the book store and taking some shape I see in there and trying to bring elemints of it into a (scetch of a) pipe. It really is a great exersise.

As to copying, heck I've finished one pipe. I'll be happy if the couple I'm working on now come out lookling like pipes, let alone the images I drew from.

Hehehehe

[KurtHuhn]

I think that allowing inluences to come through in your work is a good thing. Even so far as to try a unique shape from another carver and trying to copy it - once or twice - can be a great learning experience. It helps you understand the shapes and how the thing fits together.

However, the last thing you want to do is *only* copy other maker's shapes. This destroys the ability to be creative and develop your own style. I knew some art students in college that were great at copying drawings or paintings of other artists, but fell flat on their face when asked to create something with a style all their own. this is not a trap you want to get into.

[ArtGuy]

The influence I get from other carvers work is mainly subliminal. I purposely do not keep images of thier work or even my own conceptual drawings in my shop so as to ensure that they do not influence me too much. For me, this is important as it helps me to develope my own visual language. (that's art speak for style, sorry force of habit)

I have been looking a lot at contemporary ceramic art. Pots, vessels and the like. I happen to know quite a few cermic artists and find that thier work has influenced me as much as other pipe carvers. I can't really say how but I know is has. ( Perhaps that is where this proportion system I have been working on is coming from?? )... anyhow

The interesting thing about being in the practince of creating something, is that everything you come in contact with goes into this bank of potential subject matter. You never know where your next idea is going to come from so the best thing to do is to always be looking.

[Jeffery_Suter]

I have also found that when I try to "Force" an idea onto briar, it slaps me upside the head...

So far, my nicest pipes (IMO) have been completely freehand and have come about by letting the briar decide where I go...

However, being a graphic designer by trade, I try to have a general plan of attack when initally setting out on a design. Strangely enough, I do not enjoy putting things on paper when it comes to pipes. I tend to get a better vibe when sketching on the block...

As to infulence, I believe if I see a pipe I like and would like to own, it's already influenced me. I think it is much more subconcious than we would like to believe. I'm sure my brain makes notes while I'm not looking

[Tyler]

Based on a few of the comments in this thread, as well as other threads that have referred to this one, I think I am being slightly misunderstood. I am not saying that you must "force" anything upon the briar. How could you? The grain is the way it is in a block, and if you want it to aim the best direction, you better move with it. It won't move for you!

What I am getting at though, is that I think some makers struggle making the shapes they want to make. There are plenty of examples of billiards out there that just don't look like billiards. While it is fine to make a billiard that doesn't really look like one, the problem is when you wanted to and can't. This implies a limit of skill (developed? intrinsic?) that will NOT allow one to make beautiful pipes consistently. Why? Because it implies that even if one sees the best move for a pipe, there is a question of the ability to get there. I think that to maximize one's ability, you must be able to be intentional.

This brings up the issue of "seeing." I think some folks struggle with the ability to visualize in 3D. This leads to the problem of not really knowing what to do next on a pipe because they cannot visualize how the next move will impact the pipe. When I hold a partially completed pipe up to show my wife, she just gives me a blank stare. She has NO idea what it will look like when I'm done. She's even that way about moving furniture. She can't know what the room will look like until she sets it up a certain way. It is a serious patience trier to move the furniture four or five different times, let me tell you! At any rate, I think visualizing plays an important role in the making of pipes, and the lack of that ability really seems to hurt a maker.

Back to working with the briar. When I talk about intentionality, surely I do not mean one does not adapt. One cannot perfectly understand the inside of a block from the outside. The question is, is it an adaptation, or an accident? Did the block throw you a curve ball? Hit it to right field, no big deal. I think the problem is when you are overly controlled by the briar. This is not to say that one cannot pick up a block and sketch an idea on it that inspired by the grain. The question is, can you get that idea out of the block? One of the keys to working in harmony with a block, yet making with intentionality is picking the right block. Whether the block talks first or you do, can you make the pipe you set out to make? Certainly there are levels of intention at the outset of a pipe, but even with only a rough idea of your goal at the start, the question is once you do get an idea of where you are going (and certainly that point must be reached) the question is, can you get there?

That is what I mean by intentionality, and I think that is critical to consistently beautiful pipes.

Tyler

[Jared]

Pardon me if I'm over stepping my bounds based on my knowledge, but I totally agree with Tyler. I think the idea is basic to everything we as humans do. Essentially, walk before you run. An example I can think of is this; is it easier to learn to play a song on a piano or learn music theory? They both lead to the ultimate goal, playing a song, however one way will produce a person that can consistently play beautiful music and play whatever sort of music they would like. Additionally, a firm knowledge of the subject allows them to improvise in ways that cause us mere mortals to call them genius. The other way, just learning a song, produces me! a chump that can pick around the piano and remembers that song I learned and I can "improvise" however I've never quite been called a genius. BUT anyone CAN learn a song on the piano...the difference in your approach though WILL impact the quality that you produce.

So it's a matter of being the Mozart of the pipe carving world, or the joker that can play the theme song from the A Team (me) of the pipe carving world.


Correct me if I'm wrong.

Jared

[ArtGuy]

Just as in learning to produce fine art, copying master studies is a very worthwhile venture. In my opinion it should be done in the beginning stages. The main things that are learned are two-fold.

1. In researching the methods that person used in creating that piece you will also learn other techiques you would otherwise never seen.

2. It trains your techical ability to the point that you can make your materials do exactly what you want them to do. To prove this, there is a specific goal to which they can be compared.

As was mentioned earlier, this can become a detrament if you are not able to take these newfound skills and translate them into a style that is all your own. You would then become a knockoff.

On the subject of "forcing something on the briar". It is important for you to gain a mastery over your material. Granted, if grain is an important factor in the design of a pipe, you will have to have the correct piece of briar to attain you goal. However, the ability to eye that piece of wood can be gained through reaserching the methods of a master through copying.

Once you achieve mastery over your materials you will then have the ablity to make any pipe you like period. Only the carver himself knows for sure if they deliberatly made that pipe that way, or if they made a descision to settle for something only close to what they were intending and rationalize the result by blaming it on the piece of wood.

Personaly, the wood still bullys me a little but I find the more I carve the better I am at getting in a few good licks.

[Jeffery_Suter]

Random,

You had me at hello...

You have a set on you to even try the one piece construction... let alone perfect it! (those who haven't seen what he does should check out his site)

All I know is from my personal experience is, I have about 20 pieces of wood athat are usesless (other than door stops) by I have learned a world of info from each...

It truly is the journey, not the destination... unless you spend 20 bucks on a piece of wood of course...