At the peak of his powers.
Sunday, October 27, 2013 at 10:47AM | Neill Archer Roan | Permalink tagged Tonni Nielsen, Volcano | in Artisan, Artisanal Pipes, Design, Pipe Shapes, Pipe Shows, Pipes 
Lasse Skovgaard, Tonni Nielsen, and Mimmo Romeo at the Chicago Show several years ago.
Several weekends ago at the Richmond CORPS Show, I spent quite a few hours chatting with Danish-American pipemaker, Tonni Nielsen, and with my friend Richard Friedman, too, who Tonni mentored in pipemaking. Our conversation was revelatory to me, full of insights.
I was particularly struck by Tonni’s humility. How many 60-year old pipemakers will admit to feeling nervousness about staying at the top of their game? How many talk about ensuring that they stay practiced in some of the more difficult operations in pipemaking? Everything about Tonni Nielsen – from his lean and muscular profile to the penetrating gaze of his eyes, to the luminary quality of his artisan circle of colleagues, to an awesome body of work over a lifetime that began in the teen years of his apprenticeship at W.O. Larsen – evidences a master craftsman at the peak of his powers. Despite all that, I heard the voice of someone who takes nothing for granted, least of all his ability to meet his own standards while continuing to push himself beyond where he has grown to now.
