Well, they done did it again. SP got their US carvers to put out a pipe with a theme for the 4th of July American Exposition. This being the 5th annual they went with the original bamboo theme. It was an AMAZING group of pipes! Todd Johnson using a really unique S curved piece of bamboo where he took the stem into the bamboo from the before the bamboo curved. Really haven't seen someone do that before the way Todd did. Sam Adebayo did an incredible dark stain sandblasted scoop in the Danish style, but he sandblasted the bamboo and stained it a really nice blue color. Dasha Florov did a mind blowing piece, kind of a freehand shaped pear-ish. Had incredible grain and a really cool dragon/snake scale pattern juma stem. Looked like she inset some of the juma in the bamboo dimples (knuckles?). Adam Davidson did a head scratcher of using three bamboo pieces vertically on top of one another. Had to have taken forever to carve that one. Great work Adam! I was lucky enough to pick up Ryan Alden's offering, an incredible sandblasted morta fig shaped bowl with a really cool tight knuckled accordion style bamboo shank. Can't wait to have a bowl in that one! Congrats to all the carvers on the excellent work and a huge thanks to SmokingPipes for getting it together.
