Ornate, custom glass art pipes like this Stegosaurus from artist Elbo sold for up to $25,000 Saturday. (Photo by David Downs)
Cannabis culture reaches new artistic and retail heights in 2015, and the world of ‘functional glass art’ is way hotter than traditional gallery openings.
Three-foot tall, ornate, childhood-inspired dinosaur sculptures sold for upwards of $25,000 this weekend at a glass gallery in San Mateo, CA. Small pendants started at $550. Saturday evening, more than 100 people waited in the dark, windswept strip mall parking lot of The Cave for a public exhibition from Philadelphia piper “Elbo”. About a dozen people spent two nights camping in line for The Cave’s free gifts to the first attendees — custom Elbo glass pendants.
Pipes remain felonious drug paraphernalia in some parts of the United States. But amid widespread cannabis decriminalization and outright legalization in four states, artistic pieces like Elbo’s have joined other fine art as an investment category — both for amateur pipe-lovers, and for cash-flush industry operators without access to the traditional banking system.
