The 2010 Degenerate Flame Off at Cornerstone Glass melds together function, form and an aspect of the Eugene community that has been bringing people together for years.
Lampworking and glassblowing both have a strong presence in the community. And with places like Cornerstone, the Eugene Glass School and the EMU’s Craft Center, more and more people are coming together to blow all the time.
The Flame Off’s take on glass blowing is more specific than most. There’s an emphasis on functionality. In fact, on Saturday when the competition takes place, one of the stipulations is that the artist’s pieces must be functional; i.e. smoking devices. With the recent easing of marijuana laws at the state level and especially with the anticipated November ballot vote in California concerning legalization, the glassblowing community is growing.
Nate Dizzle, an artist working out of Seattle and a competitor in the 2010 Flame Off, recognizes the unique quality that the Eugene community has managed to develop.
“There’s a lot of glassblowers in Eugene, and I know that they interact on a non-glass basis, in addition to just the glass,” Dizzle said. “I know a bunch of people that all go play kickball together. There’s that level of community that’s just like — oh yeah we’re all friends and we all know each other and we’re totally down no matter what. I miss that a little bit up here.”
 The fact that Seattle’s glass scene may be lacking, however, doesn’t seem to stifle Dizzle’s own creative process. He has come up with one of the most innovative, as well as aesthetically pleasing, means of water percolation created to date: a water pipe known as the Swiss Perc.
“The Swiss Perc itself is a type of percolation that I designed,” said Dizzle. “It’s based off a stemless technology where I have a big flat bubble above that’s pierced with doughnuts. Sometimes I’ll do like seven, 10 doughnuts, other times there’s 30 or more.”
The result is a stemless water pipe; its bubble piece at the base is reminiscent of swiss cheese. Instead of a bubble, the glass base is relatively flat with multiple holes blown inside. When smoke is drawn up, the water and doughnut holes work simultaneously for a lighter, more efficient toke.
“Especially for people that can’t handle a giant tube or something like that, you can hit it really comfortably,” Dizzle said.
Right now, he has a production of about 30 a month with an anticipated jump to 80 to 100 within the next few months. Nearly all are made by hand on the torch and are beautifully infused with various colors. The price tag of $700 may seem steep, but when compared to other high end water pipes such as ROOR and pH(x) that are priced similarly, the innovation, artistry and individual attention make them a desired commodity.
Local Springfield artist Josh McDaniel saw the roots of the Eugene glassblowing locale transform when he started his career 10 years ago from a traditional apprentice-mentor style to a collaborative, inclusive approach.
“I’ve been in this for almost 10 years now and when I first started there was still this attitude that you apprenticed with someone, you learned from them, you didn’t share the tips,” McDaniel said. “I was starting my glass career at the end of that period, and we saw the difference when everyone started to share.”
Walk into the workshop at Cornerstone and it’s hard to even imagine a time when artists were secretive about their work and technique. About 30 spaces, as well as new additions all the time, are in a single room with artists at their workbenches. Ideas bounce off the walls like their torches on glass and no one is wary to lend a hand.
“I love the Cornerstone zone because everyone is just so on top of it, it seems,” Dizzle said. “Like at the Flame Off last year, I was just impressed at how  — ‘Oh, you have an issue?’ — every single person you asked just took care of the problem, and if they couldn’t figure it out they found a person that could and it wasn’t a big hassle.”
That type of inclusive, communal mind-set isn’t just isolated to Cornerstone, though — it permeates throughout the glass community. Even the more traditional institutions like the
Eugene Glass School have been outspoken about being more accepting of the pipe-making, functional art community.
“Last year at the Eugene Glass School awards, the President, Saeed, got up and said that it’s time to quit the negative attitude on the pipe making community,” McDaniel said. “And even though they’re not going to be making pipes there or teaching how to make pipes there, they need to quit having this negative emphasis towards people that are building the community and are the core of it all.”
Logistically, it’s a pretty smart move on the part of non-functional artists to be more inclusive of pipe blowers, as the grand majority of revenue is generated from the selling of pipes, water pipes (tubes), and other smoking apparatuses, which in turn funds investments in better technology, better colors and gives artists like Nate Dizzle the ability spend more time focusing on innovative techniques and methods.
“I think that it’s reached that point where everyone is starting to acknowledged that the two worlds aren’t separate, and no matter how much we try to keep them separate, there’s a certain amount of overlapping that’s going to happen,” McDaniel said.
A long-time member of the Eugene glassblowing community and one of the first teachers is Bob Snodgrass. Snodgrass’ impact on the community has kept it afloat, churning out generation after generation of glassblowers in Eugene.
“One of the main factors (of the prevalence of glass in Eugene) is Bob Snodgrass,” said McDaniel. “Him being one of the founding fathers of this whole movement, and him having trained many different people here that have either decided to stay and went on to train other people or that have left this area and trained people, some of them returning or some of them coming back multiple times a year to just reconnect to this community.”
“Bob Snodgrass was slangin’ pipes at Grateful Dead concerts in the parking lot when most of us were still in diapers,” McDaniel said. “If it weren’t for him training the people that trained half of this town, we wouldn’t have the pipe movement that we have, we wouldn’t have the glass art movement that we have.”
This year’s demos by McDaniel and others promise to entertain, bedazzle, and reaffirm the principles of glass culture in Eugene.
[email protected]