Design | Pipe Dream, Miwak Junior’s Ceramic Riverstone Smoking Pipes

LOS ANGELES—With their smooth curves appearing much like a stone pulled from the an old river bed, California-based design studio Miwak Junior‘s beautiful ceramic pipes are not only objets d’art, but also elevate the smoking ritual through art and quality.

Hollow on the inside for a large rip, and smooth on the exterior for an addictive tactile experience in the palm, our pipes are easy-to-clean, sturdy mini-sculptures that provide a superior smoke.

Miwak Junior, made up of Chilean artist Sebastian Boher and American artist Alice Johnson Boher, was born of a rebellious pipe dream in a community college ceramics class, the duo writes, where making such objects was prohibited. Even so, Sebastian Boher managed to sneak one of his objects into the kiln undetected, “proving that he’d created an objet of beauty with a discreet functionality.”

With an aesthetic inspired by Pre-Columbian cultures and Space Age wonder, current MIWAK JUNIOR collections are named to evoke images of the volcanoes which dot Sebastian’s native Andes, sounds of the Aviation Phonetic Alphabet through a pilot’s headset, and dreams of women with names of gold.

The design duo uses high-temperature production process that renders each bowl extra-sturdy and slightly different from one another with variations in color, shade, surface texture and size, the duo writes.

Our pipes are fired in reduction, in a gas kiln at an extremely high fire temperature. This reduction process renders our pipes especially sturdy, as well as creates an ever-changing array of finishes which make each piece truly one-of-a-kind.

Each pepple-esque pipe also features a hand-glazed bowl making the it non-porous and easy-to-clean. Among the design duo’s creations is Licancabur—named after the stratovolcano on the border between Bolivia and Chile—a dark brown stoneware pipe with a metallic black glaze in the bowl. The Papa Papa Charlie—named for the Aviation Phonetic Alphabet—features a smooth, hand-finished, textured exterior.

Miwak Junior’s luxe line of Golden Girls pipes are jewels for the palm; Gilda, Aurelia and Xantha AKA FunYun feature a matte volume gilded with 22k gold polka-dots and a lustrous golden bowl.

This post comes just as New York’s legislator’s take a look this week at legalizing recreational marijuana, the state’s next step in possibly joining seven others, which have legalized its use for recreational purposes.

Do you love or loathe these ceramic pipes from the world of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics? Share your thoughts in the comments below.