P I P E The ceramic pieces created by Riley Brain, artist and owner of Wandering Bud, resemble funky statuettes and décor items. At first glance, one might not even realize that they’re fully functional smoking pipes. You might expect to find them on a side table holding a few stems of flowers or fitting in seamlessly on a shelf full of trinkets. Their signature bright, pearlescent hues and flecks of real 22-karat gold accentuate intricately carved or painted designs. Pieces come in a variety of unexpected shapes that fit every smoker’s need. The store has an assortment of one-hitters, pipes, bubblers, and even a full-scale ceramic bong. Wandering Bud began as a passion project out of Brain’s basement in 2016 after a trip to Portland. Cannabis had just been legalized in Oregon, and she was surprised to notice a lack of variety while browsing dispensary shelves for smokeware. She wanted to see something easier on the eye that could be displayed in the home. “Glass spoon pipes and the enormous glass bongs, aesthetically, never spoke to me,” says Brain. “Having a beautiful space is self-care for me, and I just want my surroundings to match. It’s like an extension of myself. So, having ugly pieces around felt like I was doing something wrong—like something I wanted to hide.” She began playing with pottery on the
6
THE PITCH | April 2022 | THEPITCHKC.COM
FEATURE
WANDERING BUD’S RILEY BRAIN ON SMOKEWARE AND WOMEN IN CANNABIS By Hannah Strader
weekends, purchasing a kiln from Craigslist and making a list of practical needs for her designs. Originally working as an elementary school music teacher, Brain was becoming disillusioned with her day job and began planning to make the transition to ceramics full-time. “I think my dad said something [at first] like, ‘As long as it doesn’t interfere with your real job,’” Brain recalls with a laugh. “I don’t think he realized at the time that I was wanting to leave teaching as badly as I was.” Brain’s mother Jeannie Shaw, also a teacher, understood the pressure her daughter was under. She doesn’t smoke, but after living through the 1970s, pipes and cannabis don’t really phase her. “I really respect [Riley] for the fact that she was brave enough to give up her teaching career and start out on her own in this business. It’s been a lot of hard work,” Shaw says, referring to the obstacles set in place for any cannabis-adjacent companies. Banks and payment processors generally don’t work with cannabis-related businesses due to the plant’s federal regulation. In modern marketing spaces like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, Wandering Bud is censored for “sensitive content.” While Wandering Bud’s Instagram account stands at 40.3k followers at the time of this writing, Brain is still experiencing a shadowban on content, which limits the number of people
the account reaches daily. Her original TikTok account was banned as well. The drop in views was drastic, but not all of Brain’s success comes from clever marketing and viral process videos. [Editorial Note: some sources have been granted partial or full anonymity.] “I always thought pipes were those grungy glass bowls that no one ever cleaned, so it was really refreshing to see a more beautiful and aesthetically pleasing take on that,” says Tessa, a loyal customer with a collection of over five different Wandering Bud pieces. “No one really knows it’s a pipe, it just looks like art.”
D R E A M S
Another simple secret to Wandering Bud’s appeal may be the unique perspective women bring to the industry. In a traditionally male market, Gen Z women are proving to be a powerful force, with a year-over-year sales growth of 151% in 2020. “I don’t want to speak for all women, but I think what I’m seeing is disillusionment with alcohol. People are tired of wasting their entire day hungover,” Brain says. “I also think that rates of anxiety and depression are much higher among millennials. Some people can smoke all day long and it’s totally medicinal for them. It brings them down to a productive level, whereas previ-
