We talked to longtime glassblower Cima Glass about his extensive career in the cannabis glass industry and what lies in the future for his work. Cima Glass was first introduced to glassblowing in the 1990's by a small group that included Glass By AJ and Cima's friend Sean aka Nugglife Glass. The group was blowing glass out a friend's shed; Glass By AJ was Nugglife's glassblowing mentor, and at the time Cima Glass was driving trucks but Nugglife took Cima under his wing and began instructing him on basic glassblowing techniques. Cima Glass started with prep work and small sculptural pieces, and to this day prep work is still one his favorite parts of glassblowing. He would often make percolator sections, usually small sculptural pieces that would go inside of Sean's rigs. The repetitive and productive nature of these tasks allowed Cima to really hone his techniques, and this type of work would continue to be a central focus in Cima Glass' career.
Throughout the 2000's Cima Glass worked as a production-minded glassblower making mostly hand pipes, but in the early 2000's the DEA's "Operation Pipe Dreams" caused a crash in the cannabis glass market in the United States, and blowers struggled to make ends meet in an industry that had suddenly become publicly taboo. The region in California where Cima Glass lived and worked was not heavily affected by these undercover stings but they definitely felt the impact of the loss of demand across the country. Few people wanted to deal with cannabis glass makers and you couldn't even say "bong" in a shop without raising the ire of the shopkeepers. Cheap foreign imports started flooding the market and American blowers had to significantly lower their prices to stay competitive. Cima Glass was able to continue working through this time period however, and as the market stabilized Cima began to learn more techniques to expand his range as a cannabis glass artist.
Around this time Cima Glass took a class from Josh Mazet, a member of the famous Mazet art family, and through that class he met Josh's brother Eli Mazet, world-renowned shot glass artist and American glass art historian. Josh Mazet's class taught Cima more advanced sculptural techniques and foundational glass techniques that went beyond pipes and percolator sections. As Cima Glass got to know Josh's brother Eli they quickly formed a friendship and Cima Glass was inspired to try making shot glasses of his own. Cima Glass found that shot glasses were a rewarding project and they became a signature product for Cima Glass' line of solo works.
Cima Glass' aesthetic style leans heavily on clean and beautiful line work techniques like wig wag, switchback, and bender back designs, and his execution of these techniques is top notch. Cima definitely has an eye for color combinations, and his shot glasses are especially beautiful with complementary palettes and a gorgeous shine. He has recently been making these beautiful Dewar seal rigs with sculptural perc sections, but he has begun to slow down on making large projects and he wants to focus more on doing smaller sculptural pieces again as he feels he's getting a bit older and he experiences more physical strain from larger projects now.
In the current stage of his career Cima Glass has started to rediscover his love for prep work. He found that there a lot of glass artists and glassblowing companies that need line work tubing and other and prep work items like down stems and perc sections, and its a good way for an artist like Cima to earn some money through his craft without putting himself under the strain of making large projects like rigs. The rigs and pipes that he does make typically get sold to two Smoker's Choice shops in his area. In the future Cima is going to keep focusing on prep work and his small sculptural pieces, especially the faces that he has been making over the last few years, and he intends to experiment with dichro plates and to focus on spending more time with his family. You can check all of Cima's work over at the Cima Glass Instagram page.
