Handcrafted cannabis accessories bridge function and high art

For the past hundred or so years, maintaining a cannabis habit has been a private affair. Consuming a substance deemed illegal in most parts of the world has long required discreet apparatus – that ideally leaves no trace but ash.

As time has progressed – through the rise of 1960s counterculture and changes in medical legislation in the decades after – the stigma around the plant has waned enough for an ancillary realm of accessories to emerge. These include a sea of intricate, handmade borosilicate glass goods, typically made for stoners, by stoners: pipes in an array of shapes and finishes; bongs (water pipes) of every height, with complex filters and percolators for a smoother smoke; assortments of small, stubby chillums (for a single inhale or two).

That sea was aesthetically limited, though: either resembling scientific beakers or embodying the psychedelic colours and bulbous shapes associated with the hippie movement. And it remained that way until the mid-2010s, when parts of north America – including Canada, Colorado and the entire West Coast of the United States – started legalising cannabis for anyone over 21.

It’s not that the laws included support for the production of more interesting accessories, but rather that the trickle of legalisation is making it safer and less stigmatising for consumers and craftspeople to explore this space. It’s increasingly socially acceptable to own cannabis accessories and, by the look of the latest trends, that freedom is being celebrated. We’re done hiding our habits; today’s tools are made to be seen. They are beautiful, interesting, carefully made and expensive pieces meant to double both as functional objects and art. Squiggly, abstract pipes by glass artist Nicole Berger, a.k.a. Coldberger, are now sold in the Corning Museum of Glass’s shop. Her lampwork pieces reimagine how we’re used to seeing pipes work, playing with our expectations of where we should inhale and where we pack the weed.

Like glass, clay is a logical material choice for smoking accessories, with a more earthen, natural feel that complements the plant-based experience. Californian accessory brand Summerland harnessed those primordial associations and combined them with a modern sensibility to create minimalist ceramic bongs so streamlined that they look as though they were found in nature.

That isn’t to say all cannabis ceramics lean towards the rustic: Missouri-based ceramic studio Wandering Bud makes ornately carved and iridescent glazed pieces inspired by vintage glass decanters, and celebrity actor/potter Seth Rogen’s Houseplant is a mid-century-inspired ceramics company as much as a weed brand. He doesn’t make the pieces himself, but Rogen’s interest in pottery is obvious in the design of its deep, unspillable cup-styled ashtrays and the whimsy of the version covered in intentional, colourful 3D globs of glaze. The collection is at once grownup and childlike; for the stoners and for the design crowd.

For artists and makers, it seems cannabis gives them permission to be not only themselves, but to have more fun with their craft. Look at these almost algebraic-shaped ceramic bongs by Italian brand WEED’D and designer Simone Bonanni, or the work of London-based glass artist (and former Crafts cover star) Jochen Holz, who collaborated with cannabis brand Pure Beauty on a series of abstract glass bongs, whose fantastical combinations of form, colour and character (one has a face) challenge the line between utility and art. I can’t imagine Holz or Bonanni would have made those pieces without their function in mind – these objects were conceived because of cannabis.

Meanwhile, Anike Tyrrell, the founder of Irish glass studio J. Hill’s Standard – who has long been aware of the medical potential of cannabis – had been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to create something that could help more people feel comfortable trying it. The traditional cut-glass crystal studio recently released a line of hand-crafted accessories including the airy, ergonomic Cloud Pipe, a feather-light glass pipe with a narrow neck that holds the smoke, allowing the smoker to puff at their desired pace.

Seeing respected institutions and artists experiment in this way helps legitimise the plant for the mainstream, as well as for those who seek pain relief through it. It says, yes, we exist, and we are fully-formed humans with aesthetic tastes and preferences.

And for those coming from communities where cannabis is still highly stigmatised, as well as those disproportionately penalised for using it, getting to see accessories created by people with shared cultural experiences can be profound. I look at Los Angelesbased Munisa Ceramics, which makes pieces modelled after fresh-cut fruit and elaborate, tree-shaped arbol bongs that reference traditional Mexican ceramic techniques, and Minh Le Studio, which makes ceramic and brass pieces in the time-honoured style of the founder’s 1,000-year-old home village in Vietnam, and think about the cannabis-consuming Mexican and Vietnamese diaspora feeling seen wherever they are in the world.

I also think of how meaningful it is for these makers to sustain these important craft techniques for the next generation. They know exactly what they are doing when they spend hours on a visually stunning and well-functioning smoking device. They are making true statement pieces – ones that are meant to start conversations, because that’s how you enact real change.