Xin Li: Difference between revisions

[[File:XinLiProfile.JPG|thumb|300x300px|Xin Li.]]

[[File:Xin Pipes Logo crop.jpg|thumb|Nomenclature / stamping for Xin pipes is currently the following: XIN/ PIPES/ HANDCRAFTED, followed by a number indicating the pipe's year of production and serial number.|alt=|256x256px]]

Prior to becoming  pipe-maker, Xin had a career at a real estate company, but his spare time was occupied by the practical arts. Xin's affinity for woodworking, especially the crafting of furniture, meant that most of his weekends were spent in a small workshop that he owned.

There are many pipe-makers whose work Xin has expressed an admiration for. While it would be reductive to try to identify a precedent for each pipe that any pipe-maker creates, one may still discern conventions, communities, and continuities in any craft. Along with Per and Ulf of S. Bang, Xin professes a deep respect for Davide Iafisco, Jeff 'J. Alan' Gracik, Abe Herbaugh, Roman 'Doctor’s' Kovalev, Chris Asteriou, Brighton James, Wandi Riyadi, Li Zesong and, of course, Yang Zhimin.    [[File:Xin Li Bamboo Blast Billiard.jpg|left|thumb|A sandblasted billiard with bamboo from 2023, showing off Xin's more recent uses of unorthodox, but well suited, color compositions. Image courtesy LePipe.it.]]For example, many of Xin's pipes from the end of 2022 onward gesture at a return to more traditional English-French standards, such as the straight billiard, brandy and pot shapes. The resulting designs will, however, also often feature unconventionally wide, full bowls and short shanks, with much of the briar shank substituted with bamboo. This increase in bowl proportions and decrease in those of the shank and stem has been a common theme in artisan pipe-making from the later 20th century to the present, especially in the Danish and Danish-American schools (J. Alan's pipes being a notable example). This is not without reason, either; not only does it give a distinct look to the pipe, it also reduces its weight and contributes to a more even weight distribution and balance. Xin's employment of bamboo in bent pipes, on the other hand, makes the most of what this material affords that briar ordinarily does not; the introduction of steep curves into the constitutive lines which flow, interrupted, from chamber to slot (here a commonality is to be found between Xin Pipes and, for example, Kovalev's Doctor's Pipes).                    [[File:Xin pipes leaning.png|thumb|A unique cobra-like pipe with plateau and horn, made in 2023. One instance of Xin's continuing explorations of atypical forms. Composite created from images courtesy LePipe.It.|alt=|left]]Added to these techniques and motifs is a use of color that has, since its inception in the mid 20th century, been quite rare in artisan pipe-making. While artisan pipe-making has, historically, restricted its palettes to blonde, brown, and black stummels and black and red-black stems, Xin's pipes can be found dressed in shades of ocher and mint, brick red and rose, or pecan and khaki. While Xin pipes do not tend to feature vibrant color schemes, preferring more neutral hues, they are nonetheless distinctively colorful.                     

To date, Xin's pipes have been sold at PipeHub, SATX Pipe, and LePipe.It.