While Scottie Piersel is probably best known for her work with pencil shanked pieces, the Kansas City based carver is no stranger to shape chart classics. And honestly, as much as I like her lithe signature works, there's some very comforting about the pieces she produces with a bit more muscularity. Broad and quite generous of briar around the chamber walls, it's a very solid rendition of the Pot that gives the bowl some extra height without crossing into Billiard territory by making the shank particularly stout. Finished in a ruby red stain over a sandblast so wild I'm genuinely surprised that it's briar and not strawberry wood, it's paired to a vulcanite stem of swirled Payne's Grey and inky black.

— Adam M. O'Neill