Why Riley Brain Quit Her Day Job To Chase Her Pipe Dreams Ceramics Studio
The Wandering Bud founder joins the podcast to talk about bubblers, fair wages, and cannabis culture in Kansas City, Missouri
Not so long ago, my good friend and Pipe Dreams guest, Natalie Smith, shot me a text asking for bubbler recommendations. For the unfamiliar, bubblers fall within the water pipe category of cannabis smokeware, relying on water filtration to deliver a smoother hit. Think of it as a portable bong that fits neatly within the palm of your hand.
Owning a bubbler says something about you as a stoner. It’s a very specific pipe, not exactly the type a novice would gravitate towards. This is the kind of piece that regular smoker would look into after realizing, “You know, I guess I’ve been smoking for awhile. Maybe it’s about time to have some consideration for my lungs.”
From a functional perspective, bubblers require a lot less effort to hit than a bong because of their smaller size, which is easier on the lungs to avoid those much-dreaded coughing fits and gives the user a better sense of control. While compact in size, it’s not exactly inconspicuous and looks deceivingly more complicated than it actually is. In fact, many are just plain ugly.
Despite swimming in an excess of papers, precision vaporizers, one-hitters, pipes, bongs, dab rigs, and chillums from covering luxury cannabis accessories for the past several years, somehow bubblers just dropped off my radar. Being asked about where to find the coolest ones threw me for a loop, but in a very endearing way so that I appreciated the challenge. After all, what was happening in the world of bubblers anyway? I decided to investigate.
Until recently, I’ve only owned one bubbler that coincidentally came with a story. While recording their album Spirit Youth and performing at one of the 2010 summer music festivals (Pitchfork or Lollapalooza?), I gave refuge to dream pop indie band The Depreciation Guild, who crashed on the living room floor of my Humboldt Park apartment in Chicago. During the week or so that they stayed with me and my roommate, they introduced us to the concepts of Tommy Wiseau, Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster, and bubblers. It was a pretty great summer. Actually, now that I think about it, this album still owns. Give it a listen.
I can’t recall the reason why they gave me the bubbler—maybe to replace a glass pipe or just as a thank you—but it didn’t matter. I was entering a new phase of my life as a person who owned a bubbler. The gesture felt a bit mystical, like tarot cards, where they’re supposed to be bestowed upon you rather than purchased. Just another sign from the universe guiding me on my endless journey of becoming a weed witch and living the weed witch lifestyle.
Though the bubbler wasn’t quite my style, I loved it anyway and named it Bong Crosby. It stuck with me through several apartments until I handed it off to another roommate in need of a new piece. Even so, for years I held onto it, it collected dust, mostly shoved into a back corner, tucked behind books on a shelf, or hidden within a French oak wine crate I transformed into a makeshift classy stash box and humidor. Parting with it seemed to be more of a symbolic loss than a functional one. After all, I didn’t have the incentive to remember to use it in the first place; it didn’t go with my apartment.
So, back to the question at hand: where are all the cool bubblers? Once the least attractive smokeware you could possibly buy, the green rush of 2018 and 2019 gave rise to the influx of cool, aesthetically-pleasing functional smokeables that catapulted the mainstreaming of cannabis culture. And as I began my search for the ultimate cool bubbler, I received a tip to check out a brand—that I am now delighted to introduce!
On the pod this week: Riley Brain, founder of Wandering Bud, a Kansas City, Missouri-based ceramics studio that specializes in home decor for cannabis connoisseurs. She also takes the crown for producing the most beautiful bubbler worthy of every coffee table: the Billie, an abstract-inspired vessel that functions as a water pipe, but easily disguises as a flower vase.
Much like me, it was a failed search for a water pipe that could be beautifully displayed at home that led Riley to starting Wandering Bud in 2016. Feeling inspired after a summer spent in Portland, Oregon during the year that recreational cannabis legalized, she decided that she was done with playing “hide the bong” every time her parents would drop by and time to figure out how to make pieces that would fit with the design aesthetic of her apartment.
After scouring Craigslist for kilns, she borrowed $700 from her grandfather and started experimenting with an Etsy shop until it grew exponentially. At the time, cannabis was still illegal on both sides of the state lines in Missouri and Kansas, so pioneering a cannabis accessories brand in the Midwest was a risky endeavor.
“I did my first in-person event in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2018 and was really nervous because we hadn’t voted on medical yet. I was nervous to see just how the community would react seeing these beautifully designed pipes and bongs just out at an art fair next to paintings,” she says. “And the reaction was really positive. I didn’t get a single person giving me a side-eye or anything like that. This was in a really progressive, liberal part of Kansas City, but still, I was heartened by that.”
Given that California and New York often dominate the conversation surrounding U.S. cannabis, the cultural impact of cannabis in middle America often gets lost in the mix. It’s easy to forget that Missouri passed legislature to legalize medical cannabis in 2018 and became the 21st state to legalize recreational marijuana last November, which is why it might surprise you that the state surpassed the $1 billion sales mark within the first three months of legalization in 2023. That’s a lot of secret stoners! It’s also a lot of tangible data that will likely impact future federal legalization.
As a medical user with Crohn’s disease, she was among the first wave to join the Missouri medical program and establish a local name brand. After a few renderings, the Billie bubbler was born and became an instant cult classic. Leaving her day job as a music school teacher in 2018, Riley decided to go all-in on the the brand and pursue Wandering Bud full-time. Today, she employs a team of seven female artists who make one-of-a-kind smokeware and accessories by hand and regularly partners with artists like Whitney Manney and Joe Bradford for limited edition runs of collector items.
“People are kind of shocked to hear that I used to be an elementary music teacher. I did not go to school for business or for ceramics. So, this is a major career pivot for me,” she says.
“People on social media will oftentimes push back on our pricing and I'll just say, ‘You know, our employees like to be paid in money, not in good vibes. So, that's the reason that they're priced the way they are.’” —Riley Brain, founder of Wandering Bud
She’s also generated a pretty large social media following where she shows off her wares and fields questions—including the hefty price tag on some of Wandering Bud’s more high-end pieces as part of their progressive labor model.
“As it grew and I started hiring employees, I thought a lot about what kind of employer I wanted to be. And paying artists fair wages is something that I think I should be doing. So we do,” she says. “That is largely the reason that our pieces are priced the way they are. They're completely handmade by artists in our studio in Kansas City. That means we're paying artists fair wages for their work in the U.S. and yeah, that costs money. People on social media will oftentimes push back on our pricing and I'll just say, ‘You know, our employees like to be paid in money, not in good vibes. So, that's the reason that they're priced the way they are.’”
On the latest Pipe Dreams podcast, Riley discusses how she quit her day job and built her skills to chase her pipe dreams, the method and thinking behind her form-meets-function designs, her tips for enjoying Kansas City’s cannabis scene is like (come visit the studio! Check out The Nelson-Atkins Museum!), the joys of home growing, smart ways to side-step the social media censorship police, and a solid argument for cleaning your wares before and after every use.
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