cannthropology
WORLD OF Cannabis PRESENTS
48
leafmagazines.com
American Pipe Dreams When it comes to glass smokeware, it doesn’t get much more old school than Jerome Baker Designs. JBD helped to establish the modern glass industry and became the largest bong producer in the world … that is, until Operation Pipe Dreams caused the company to go up in smoke. Now, nearly 20 years later, they’ve risen from the ashes to reclaim their place of prominence in the glass game. PYREX PIONEERS The Jerome Baker story begins, unsurprisingly, in the parking lot of a Dead show in Massachusetts in July 1989. It was there that a college student from Miami named Jason Harris met a hippie pipe maker from Eugene, Oregon named Bob Snodgrass. Known as the Godfather of Glass, Snodgrass invented two groundbreaking glassblowing techniques: fuming (aka color-changing glass) and the “pushed-in bowl.” His individualism and ingenuity would inspire and influence all those to follow.
apr. 2021
Jerome Baker Designs
“There was just some magical attraction to Bob—he’s just that kind of being,” Harris says. “He was the coolest dude I’d ever met. I just wanted to be like him instantly.” After graduating in 1991, Harris enrolled in the art program at the University of Oregon, moved out to Eugene and reached out to Snodgrass. In the months that followed, Harris saved his money, bought a torch, and began studying under Snodgrass as one of only 10 apprentices. “There was an energy in the air surrounding that scene at the time,” he recalls fondly. “It was magical.” In 1993, Harris and fellow apprentice Chris Shave (founder of Jah Creations Glass) started working together—first in a small garage down the street from Snodgrass, then in a larger studio with another fellow student, Dan K. It was Dan who introduced the group to the big Carlisle CC Burner torch and heavy wall glass, as well as the “wrap and rake” technique—all of which were game-changers for the budding industry. Harris and Shave sold their pipes on the Dead tour, as well as at headshops in New York. To set himself apart and earn more money, Harris began making bongs rather than pipes—a technique he learned from Snoddy’s top student, Cameron Tower. He also took advantage of his mom’s flight attendant privileges to fly around the world and study glass art—working at glass shops in Italy, Germany, and even as far as India.
