Pipe Art, literally

Back in the late 90's, I was fortunate enough to be contacted by a Russian artist named Juris Dimiters. I am not certain on the first name - I think it was spelled differently, but I can't remember the exact spelling. At the time, he had a very nice website displaying JPGs of his original oil paintings. He had a wide range of subjects but one entire part of his catalogue was devoted to paintings of pipes - an odd subject, no doubt, but then it's hardly the first time that pipes have been focal points in fine art. The Dimitirs paintings were, ahem, suggestive (to say the least), but I thought they were well done and displayed a fun sense of humor. Unfortunately, a year or two later his website vanished from the net, and today I find no references to the name on Google (which suggests again that my spelling is off, though I have tried many variations on Juris, Jurus, Jorus, etc). I don't know what happened to him, but I'm glad I saved this one picture thumbnail that he sent me, as it seems to be the only remaining sample of his work online.

A photo re-post

Apologies for reposting something that's already been seen, but I wanted to show this again because this new format allows the pictures to be viewed full-size (just click the pic) and this is one which benefits greatly from being able to see it larger. The old 500-pixel-wide limit made a lot of photos unworkable. I also thought this would be a good post for the new archives. To reiterate what I said before, this is the machine I use to drill most of my pipes. I drilled via drill press and lathe for many years, but recently I've changed to shaping the pipes prior to drilling them, which allows for more range of shapes and better use of the grain of a block. The adjustable chuck jaws are soft, and able to conform to most pipe shapes, plus the jaws can rotate, raise and lower, slide from side to side, and even tilt to various angles in their grip. It makes it very simple to chuck virtually any shape (I even drilled the recent "Grendel's Mother" this way) and allows me to use cheap and easily replaceable spade bits for drilling. In the background of the pic one can see several bins full of readymade copper and silver bands, which we use sometimes on our Ligne Bretagne pipes. Also, sitting down on the floor under the shelf is an ancient pulley block, now rusted and dusty but still smooth-spinning. I've got about six of these things tucked under there. I doubt I'll ever do anything with them but one never knows!

Original Sketch for Grendel's Mother

And here is the original sketch for the pipe below. I dropped the idea of the skull on the back because I thought it clashed with the organic and living look of the fingers, so it has become the toothed mouth of a blind worm, with the stem working as an extended tongue. As one might imagine, my work is particularly challenging to talk about in polite conversation...