Colm Magner

Colm Magner is a Canadian pipe maker born in 1961. He made his name with the kidney-sectioned "Boxer" form he developed himself. He came to the craft late and by a roundabout route: by the time he began carving pipes, he already had years of stage and screen work behind him.

From Stage to Bench

Magner spent many years acting, playwriting, and directing, working in television and film alongside theater. He is recorded as having taught acting and playwriting for a period at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI). He began carving pipes in 1998, while working as an actor at the Shaw Festival; according to the account given, he never gave up the pursuit, and carried on carving alongside his stage work. He is also said to have made handmade jewelry during the same years. Though Canadian-born, he later settled in New York; the exact date of the move is unknown.

Production never scaled up to a factory level, remaining a one-person bench. In this respect Magner falls on the artisan side of the artisan-pipe-versus-factory-pipe distinction. In his early period he is reported to have supplied his pipes directly to tobacconists in Toronto, which kept total output limited and scattered.