Dan Coyle

When most cannabis consumers think about glassware, they picture the typical pipes and bubblers on display at gas station counters and smoke shops. Some of those pipes are mass produced, bought wholesale online, and sold at reasonable prices for the cannabis everyman looking for something that will get the job done.

But to Dan Coyle and his community of artists, glassware means so much more. Beyond the gas station bowls and Amazon pocket pipes exists a global congregation of collectors and artists whose obsessions for glass have built an expansive universe. Glass artists like Coyle design pieces that marry function with form resulting in stunning glass creations that double as perfectly efficient pipes. “I create pieces that people can have on their shelves for display and then pick them up and smoke them” Coyle told CRQ.

In his previous career, Coyle was a professional scientific glass blower making glass lab equipment like beakers, test tubes, and intricate falling film distillation apparatuses. He jumped ship in 2011 and became a fully independent artist in 2013. For ten years he’s built a massive following of collectors across New England and a nationally recognized brand. Podcast and ex-fear factor host Joe Rogan follows Coyle on Instagram.

If you want one of Coyle’s pieces, he says you can find them online or in stores. He doesn’t sell direct, but he does do commissions (sometimes.) Some stores that carry his work include Lillis in Worcester, Northern Lights in Enfield, Witch DR. in Salem Massachusetts, Naturals Collective in Lemonster and Stoked in Bridgeport Connecticut.

WHAT IS THE STYLE / INSPIRATION OF YOUR ART?

My main thing is sculptural work and I do cartoon realism its semi-grafitti-esque. I make monkeys, that’s my main thing I like to make because it’s my favorite animal. Slowly over the years they’ve morphed into their own kind of design. I can make it as a pilot or caricatures. I also do bears which are my mother’s favorite animals. I have banana motifs and even pipes shaped like colors of bananas because that’s monkey food.

Besides those main designs I have developed like a functional recycler. It’s for smoking hash oil they call it a rig. The water will come up into one chamber then shoot back down then recycle back up as you’re hitting it and the water splashes around like crazy and diffuses and cools down the smoke. That design I made is called a backflip recycler. The concept behind it was everyone started making them 5 years ago and there was this documentary on motocross called “unchained” and they were talking about in the competitions as soon as someone did a backflip on a dirt bike pretty much everyone had to do one to place. My idea with this was for the water to come up and do a backflip. I spent a lot of time designing it. I made about 10 prototypes until I got one that worked and functioned the way I wanted to.

Kind of like comparing the backflip in motocross to recyclers in pipe industry. A lot of people have developed their own designs.

WHEN DID YOU START AS AN ARTIST?

I have always done art when I was little, but I kind of fell off. I was cooking in the kitchen and studying culinary arts. I wanted to try glass art. For beginner glass artists it’s hard to make a living and build your skills. I found a college that taught glass blowing. When I graduated I had one job over the summer making quartz apparatus.

I worked in Milwaukee making laboratory equipment glass. I was making pipes and pendants on the side for friends.

In May I quit my job and decided to become a full time artist. I cashed my 401K which kept me afloat for 8-9 months but I was making a lot of work but selling and marketing was difficult. I was getting to the end of my 401k money with shelves full of work and then this person came through and ended up buying it all and helped promote me.

HOW POPULAR ARE YOUR PIPES, DO PEOPLE USE THEM FOR FLOWER?

It is popular; its all dependent on the person. More people are more focused on smoking concentrate and hash. People still smoke flower out of the dry pipes and bubblers. With these pieces they’re pretty crazy, there’s a big community of people and “sesh” is what they call it. With the pipe art that’s what makes it different than painting. These collectors will take their piece and travel and set up and smoke and its kind of a little bit more sentimental, people get to share in and hold it, touch it, you breathe through it, you’re smoking through the artwork. People sharing smoke, it’s been a thing for a long time.

WHAT DO YOU MAKE BESIDES PIPES?

I make pipes, pendants, drinkware, sculpture work, sometimes ornaments. Right now I’m working on cups that are carved out a little bit with my motifs and candles so that people can buy it, burn the wax out then have a drinking cup at the end. Marbles are a big thing too.

DO PEOPLE COLLECT YOUR WORK?

Yeah. I have a loyal customer base of collectors. I just had a show and it was a big sesh and two of my collectors came and were using my bigger pieces letting people use them.

WHATS YOUR MOST POPULAR DESIGN?

Hard to say, I’d say the monkeys but that’s because that’s what I make the most of. My backflip design is popular too but I don’t make as much of those. Those take quite a bit of time and effort to make.

WHAT DEFINES YOUR TECHNIQUE?

It takes a lot of patience, a steady hand. Since I was trained in scientific glass blowing I use a lot of the techniques I learned in the trade because it really helps me out to know how big to make things or how small. If I’m making a complex glass I know what pieces fit together.

After entering a dispensary, showing your identification and being let into a world of possibilities, what do you do next? Does the vibrant colored packaging catch your eye or is it the THC infused chocolate bar that is calling your name? With so many products to choose from and emotions to target, the experience can be overwhelming for a first time or seasoned cannabis user. To assist in the process are the individuals behind the bar. You might know them as “budtenders,” but at Insa, the employees have more knowledge than an encyclopedia.

Head of Training and Education

Lisa Black said the Insa team members engage and educate everyone who walks through the door. For those that are new to cannabis, the employees take things slow in order to understand what best suits the customer’s needs. No matter one’s experience with cannabis, “the team is prepared to answer