Brian Regan, left, and Kyber Bernstein examine the detailed work on this beautiful pipe.
We’ll start with a history lesson:
About fifty years ago, a neighborhood 3000 miles away from the Riverwards found itself at the epicenter of cultural and political change. San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district was considered a slum in the early 1960s after many of its residents fled the city for the suburbs. By the decade’s end, the neighborhood had been reclaimed by artists, musicians, writers and open-minded people. This creative renaissance (or hippie BS, depending on which side of the protest line you were standing behind) transformed into a movement, and the words of folks like Allen Ginsberg and Jerry Garcia became revered as scripture.
Before the Summer of Love even reached its peak, head shops began opening up across the Haight. These shops specialized in hand-blown glass art used for consumption of herbs and tobacco. They also sold counterculture art, magazines, music, clothing, and home decor. The first head shop in the country was The Psychedelic Shop, which opened on January 3, 1966 and was operated by United States Army veteran Ron Thelin and his younger brother Jay. The storefront was more than just a one-stop-shop for all things pot — it was symbolic of an entire ideological movement and served as an important outlet for underground newspapers and counterculture cartoonists who had little access to the established channels of newsstand distribution.
Fast forward a half-century and Fishtown’s own head shop, Head Games Philly at 5 W. Girard Avenue, finds itself on a similar, modern day cusp of cultural change. Marijuana laws are relaxed in Philadelphia, especially after Mayor Michael Nutter signed Jim Kenney’s marijuana decriminalization bill in October 2014. Meanwhile an artistic renaissance is evident throughout the city. Reminiscent of Haight in the 60s, artists are coming to Fishtown and Kensington with the intention to create things. Many of them are working in the highly specialized medium of glass art.
Glass art has come a long way since the 1960s counter culture movement; it is not the inside-out glass that mom made you smash after finding it with your stash. Today it’s not uncommon to find to a piece worth thousands of dollars that you can enjoy for herbal use but may choose not to; it’s so much more than just a water pipe — it’s known as fine glass art and it’s someone’s masterpiece. This level of artistry is what’s most important to the guys over at Head Games Philly (HGP), and it is what sets them apart from other head shops like Artifax in Mayfair and Wonderland in Center City.
HGP features a wide range of glass chillums and spoons as well as a full assortment of vaping devices. The store is owned by several people but is the brainchild of brothers Kyber and Brad Bernstein. The brothers have been in the glass art business since the 1990s and have operated several different businesses in the North West, South West and East Coast. In 2002 the brothers decided to change direction and began a long stint as nightclub owners. Despite this new line of work, their desire to open a glass shop remained strong; this shop would reflect the true skill and talent of glass artists and the inherent beauty of the medium itself, and also be a space that could provide glass artists with the necessary materials to their creative process.
Brian Regan prefers to be behind the torch. Here he’s about to fuse an arm to a panda which is the mascot for Bounty Hunter Glass.
In Fishtown, they discovered the perfect community to make this dream a reality. The Bernstein brothers saw the neighborhood as an area booming with the exact type of artists they hoped to exhibit.
“We really want to make a business in glass supplies. Here an artist can get their materials, and place their products,” Brad said. “Our focus is to act as a venue for our artists to reach their audience. This is what we always wanted to do, and with the political culture and climate changing, it’s only opening new markets [for fine glass art].”
When I first walked into HGP, I was drawn to a case filled with pipes created by local artist Brian Regan of Bounty Hunter Glass. Noticing my curious gaze, Brad looked over to me and affirmed my intrigue, “He’s sick.”
Regan learned how to blow glass while in California.
“I met a guy who had a shop, and he wouldn’t let me in. That made me want to do it more,” he said. “He let me sit there and watch for two hours one day, and I decided that was what I wanted to do.
Regan invited me to check out his studio in Kensington. There he perfects his craft and teaches a new generation of glass artists the ropes. “I’ll take an image, I’ll look at it; I’ll analyze how to make it, then come up with a process and execute it,” Regan said.
Believe it or not, you can smoke out of this incredibly detailed piece by another local glass artist Josh Opdenaker. He goes by the name Jop.
During our talk, Regan was very humble, and he downplayed his direct influence on glass blowing in Philadelphia. He told me that he had a small shop in the mid-90s in South Philly where many people came through and learned glass blowing. He has taught glass blowing at The University of the Arts and has more than 20 years of experience under his belt. The detail to his work is extraordinary and his use of vibrant colors accentuates the experience of each piece.
Back at HGP, I found myself drawn to a water pipe with some incredible colors and unique parts, one being a percolator. This was one of the most beautiful pieces I’d ever seen, and I would most likely never touch a flame to any part of it. I spoke with it’s creator — a man who goes by the name “Glass Munky.”
Munky’s a local guy with 11 years experience and a shop in Port Richmond. He explained to me that many artists don’t have the time and patience necessary to perfect the art of glassblowing.
“I’ve worked on the piece for five days,” Glass Munky started to recount, “then on the last day, something happens and the entire thing breaks. Having to be able to walk away from that can be really heartbreaking.”
The level of artistic skill and superior attention to detail required for this medium are achieved through years of training and a given talent for creating art out of glass. It’s the functional nature of these pieces that raises questions regarding their potential status as valid art. There is no doubt that many people do smoke marijuana out of these pieces, and use them as pipes. “To be honest, that’s what that shit is for,” Glass Munky said.
“[To] me personally, it’s art,” Kyber said. “I might not be so quick to use a $2000 piece, but if they do, it’s their piece.”
As fine glass art becomes more popular, as the decriminalization of marijuana continues to pay dividends, and as marijuana culture becomes more and more mainstream, it’s important to remember that the unique expression of an artist’s vision lies behind the smoke.
