The Chicago Pipe Making Seminar Curriculum

The Chicago Pipe Making Seminar Curriculum is the written skeleton of the workshop course that has repeated for years as part of the international pipe show organized by the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club. The text is a curriculum outline showing which subjects the teaching team covers and in what order; in this sense it reads less as a single year's event announcement and more as a framework summarizing the topics hand pipe making is divided into.

The Framework of the Show and the Seminar

The club's show began in 1996, changed venues a few times within Illinois in its early years, and has, over time, come to be considered the world's most crowded pipe gathering. The making seminar is the longest-running part of the show's educational program outside the collector tables; in show announcements it's scheduled for the two days preceding the main days, and is advertised as a separate event requiring advance registration.

At the head of the course is Lee von Erck, a maker working in Michigan; it is often said that the seminar owes its present form to him, though the title of "founder" doesn't appear in independent records. The teaching staff changes from year to year: show announcements list names such as Michael Butera, Joe Nelson, and Andrew Petersen alongside von Erck. Records also show Jeff Gracik and Ernie Markle, who rose to instructor after going through the seminar himself, occasionally teaching as well, while Rex Poggenpohl is cited as an organizer on the administrative side. That the program defines separate staff for equipment setup and first aid shows that the machinery used in the workshop is meant to be taken seriously.