STARDATE0710.24 - EARLY DAYS

THE EARLY DAYS...
My adventures in glassblowing began in the summer of 2002 in Olympia, Washington when a good friend of mine introduced me to a glassblower named John ‘Chico’ Roberts. Eventually Chico would trust me with the keys to his home studio on the weekends while he would take his family to peddle his glassware at local music festivals. I'd show up with mix tapes of punk, hiphop, and EDM and lose myself in the flame for hours upon hours. Below are the very first journal pages I wrote to myself, on the second page I even laid out my dream career scenario...which sounds a lot like what I have built with @everdreamstudio

They say writing things down brings them into reality...



IDOLS and INSPIRATION...
During my first few years on the torch I was heavily inspired by most of the artists posting regularly to glasspipes.org at the time, most notably Jason Lee Glass, Ease Glass, Darby Holm Glass, Marcel Glass, Clinton Roman, Erik Anders Glass, Pyrochixrock, Banjo Glass, and Mike Fro just to name just a few. I’d log on the site every morning as soon as I’d wake up to see what was posted and 'featured'. The progression and one-upsmanship was inspiring to a beginner, and because of the open-source nature of the internet, the information pipeline on what was previously a fairly secretive art form was opening up. That's also when I stumbled into the GLDG glassblowing forum (now Talk Glass),and I spent every waking minute on there that I wasn't on the torch, soaking up as much info about glass as I could.

Check out the very first pipes I ever made:


...and after just a few years of hard work and determination I was making pipes like these:


NoDFX...as in No Defects, get it? ...Don't worry, nobody did :/
While I was learning and perfecting the more advanced techniques, I also had my 'bread & butter' production line to make sure the lights stayed on and the oxygen tanks were filled. I was simultaneously going to college for graphic design, and so armed with illustrator/photoshop I set up an official business (NoDFX) and went to work making a website and brochure (see below) to help me sell my glasswares. Soon after I had enough sales and solid accounts to quit school. I stayed in Washington State for a few more years refining my chops while saving up with the plan to eventually hit the road. I would embark on a nationwide road trip to collaborate with as many people as possible, while learning as much as possible, and filling enough small orders along the way to get gas money to my next destination.



They say 'fake it until you make it' and while it might not be the best way forward for everyone, it worked enough to land some stable accounts and keep the lights on!



HITTING THE ROAD
When I first left on my road trip, I wanted to get as far away from WA as I could, not out of spite (maybe a little), but mostly out of curiosity, as I had only seen a few parts of the country as a child. As I headed east I spent some time in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and then Virginia for the first leg of the trip and then eventually made my way down to Florida to stay with some old friends who had relocated there from the Pacific Northwest. There I setup a small studio space in a buddy’s garage in St Augustine, and after about a month of working there, I came back to find the garage completely cleaned out except for my didymium glasses. My entire livelihood was gone, I was crushed to say the least. A few good folks from the GLDG community gifted me some replacement tools and Ron from the Art Glass House immediately loaned me a Bethlehem torch to get me fired back up. @micahglass and his crew gave me a bench space to work and the camaraderie I needed to stay positive. I stayed in Florida slinging prodo and smoking mids for the next 9 months…just long enough replace everything that had been stolen, and then I got the fxxk outta there!💨

LOSING MY MARBLES
After leaving Florida in 2005, I drove back west and landed in Drain Oregon, which is about an hour south of Eugene. My second glassblowing mentor, Lee Zeigler, was building an art gallery there and invited me to live/work there while it was established. I worked with Lee there for about two years, and during this time period I was starting to wrestle with some major burnout. Imported production pipes were my biggest competitor at the time, and prices had been getting lower and lower every year, and I was struggling to compete. I worked longer hours to make more pipes for even cheaper, but my physical and mental health began to deteriorate as a result, and after so many years of just barely breaking even (even though I was doing what I loved), I was beginning to fall behind financially, leading me to question whether I was really 'living the dream'. I decided something had to change; I had to quit making production pipes and make more of a name for myself as an artist. I was also tired of making pipes in the shadows as a result of Operation Pipe Dreams back in 2003, and selling marbles allowed me to promote myself again online while reinvigorating my passion for glass...and as a result, some of my favorite work (even to this day) came from this time period (2005-2008) under the moniker 'EyeCandyArts'.

TOKE CITY
I was still making headdies on the side, mostly for my homies and a few shops who had high-end clientele, but marbles and pendants became my new focus for a couple of years. Dialing in these simpler forms rewarded my pursuit for perfectionism in both design and execution, allowing me to push my work and skills to the next level and beyond. I eventually stumbled into the TokeCity community where there were sub-forums dedicated to glass sales, and I started posting pictures of my slides and small drys. I applied what I had learned from making and selling marbles direct-to-customer to my functional work sales and all of a sudden I found myself back in the pipe game with a whole new skill set and clientele.

Collectors were starting to seek out specific artists for their unique techniques and style, and it heightened the awareness that I needed to cultivate my own techniques and style...something I knew all along as a budding artist. But a 'style' is not something one just conjures out of thin air! It simply just 'arrives' one day as a result of immeasurable hard work, usually after an artist has chosen to pursue and refine a certain aesthetic. And so I really started to obsess on trying as many new things as possible; I would try to use my toolbox of widely used techniques to create my own individual style. It was around this time that I would make my first space-themed pipe, pictured below, but it would be another few years and a move to Colorado in 2010 before I would dedicate myself to developing that far-out Intergalactic style.

My first space piece: Deep Space 'FOUR9TEEN' - Reward for this piece if found!


GOING INTERGALACTIC
I remember making this piece and trying to do something a little different than the usual wigwags that literally every other pipemaker including myself was making at the time. I began to show it around to some local artists and peers that I looked up to, but no one seemed that particularly excited, so after my own initial excitement wore off, I kinda just put the whole space concept on the back-burner for awhile. A few years later I moved to Humboldt California to grow weed and I had a lot of extra time at night to play in the shop after farming all day. So I started to dabble with the space scenes again, and I made around a dozen or so pieces which I would later dub #IG0point0 (IG0.0) as my experimental starting ground...

THE MOVE TO COLORADO
In 2010 I moved from California to Denver, Colorado to be apart of the Shackman Glass Studio with Brian Shackman, AdamG, WJC, Alex Ubatuba, Simon, and Silver Fox. The studio later moved locations and expanded to include Burtoni Glass and F-Time and rebranded as Shackmansion. Fun fact: it wasn't a mansion or even a house at all! It received that name bc of its larger size in comparison to the much smaller previous studio.

Here's me shortly after arriving in Colorado - there wasn't enough room at the main bench so they made me a solo bench in the corner, leading to many 'they put me in the corner' jokes...


A STYLE IS BORN
Around this time I was really starting to get focused on the idea that I needed my own style, and so right after joining Shackman Studio in 2010 I remember making a conscious decision that 'I am only going to make space now’. And that’s when #IG1point0 (IG1.0) started. That’s also when I decided that I would always include certain elements (a UFO and a few crescent moons) to stay consistent and become a style. Once I ran out of those initial murrine, I was forced to learn how to make my own murrine thanks to a class with Paul Stephan, and this became the evolutionary creative path I’m currently on today, where I’m now at #IG4point19 (IG4.19). If you want to read more about the entire IG0.0 to IG4.19 timeline, please check out My Official Collectors Guide.

Here are some early batches of my IG1.0 Series pieces made at Shackman Studios in Colorado...




INTERGALACTIC 4.0
This has led me to my current place in the Intergalactic Series timeline, #IG4point19. For the 4.0 series I created my most ambitious run of murrrine designs with over 40 unique and abstract designs and adding in new various one-of-a-kind elements called ‘Wormies’, (short for Wormholes, and loosely inspired by AK’s ‘thumbies’). I started this series of murrine in early 2019, releasing them at a summer show on 7/10 in Denver. I later created 5 more designs (honeycombs and two new versions of spiral galaxies) for #IG4point1. I started to run out of most of my latest murrine and announced a soft retirement, but have since salvaged enough of the white components to make a few last IG4.19 pieces. What is in store for #IG5point0? I have a few ideas, but you’re just going to have to stick around to find out! To be continued...

Here's an IG4.0 Series solo rig...


Here's a close-up of an IG4.0 Series scene...it's come along ways since 2007!