Maigurs Knets

Maigurs Knets is a pipemaker born in Latvia who has worked in the United States since 1990. The workshop bearing his name is built on individually finished pieces rather than mass production, and is known for its attempt to carry the flowing line of Art Nouveau into pipe shape. The maker works in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

From Latvia to Wisconsin

Knets was born in Latvia in 1962. He completed his art education in applied decorative arts, graduating in 1989; records indicate the school was in Liepāja, and his diploma covered antique furniture restoration, wood carving, and sculpture. He emigrated to the United States in 1990 and settled around Chicago.

The roughly twenty years that followed passed as something of an indirect extension of his art training: throughout this period Knets produced models and prototypes for the hobby, toy, and industrial design sectors. The habits of precise measurement, mold logic, and hand-shaping carried over from that work and later transferred directly to the pipe lathe. He moved into full-time pipemaking in 2010.