Go West: the American Handmade Pipe Scene

Go West is the title of a magazine article introducing artisan pipe making in the United States to European readers; it is not a brand or workshop name. Its being referred to in pipe literature as a standalone entry stems from the text being kept in archives under its own name. The article bears the byline of Erwin Van Hove.

Per its own credit line it first appeared in the June issue of the French magazine Pipe Mag, then in the spring 2004 issue of Pipes and Tobaccos; this publication information has not been confirmed by any record outside the text's own credit.

The National-Style Thesis

The article's backbone rests on a single question: can one speak of an "American style" the way one speaks of styles for Denmark, Italy, or England? Van Hove's answer is no, and he locates the reason in geography and institutions alike. In Europe, production has concentrated in narrow areas like Saint-Claude, Pesaro, or Svendborg, and knowledge has passed down through generations within a workshop structure and a master-apprentice chain, as in the case of the Danish School. The US has neither this concentration nor a regular apprenticeship institution; carvers are scattered across the country and most are largely self-taught. Van Hove calls the result eclecticism. He does not argue that transmission is entirely absent: he notes that the gap is filled by telephone, email, and annual pipe shows. The largest of these is the Chicago International Pipe Show, run by the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club, founded in 1996.