Glass art has existed in many forms over the centuries. From goblets and dishes, to vases and chandeliers, glass has brought many shapes and colors to life over the years. Now, glass blowers have found a new avenue to take the art form: glass pipes.

From the parking lots of the Grateful Dead shows to galleries in our own neighborhoods, this functional glass art has come a long way. Functional glass is the newest incarnation of glass blowing and the growth within this new art form is endless. Blowers of glass pipes have been sprouting up in the North Country and in Burlington area due to the popularity of the art.

Jonah Magnoni, a glass blower from Portland, Oregon, has worked with glass since the days of his parent's stained glass shop. Now residing in Burlington, Vermont, Jonah, like other professional blowers, is known only as Jonah in the presentation and signing of his work. Jonah is a blower of fine glass pipes, marbles, and other glass art. "With pipes I could be as creative as I wanted to be and still get paid everyday."

The birth of glass pipes came in the early 1980s when Bob Snodgrass, a wood worker from Eugene, Oregon, traded his table saw for a kiln and single- handedly brought a new genre of glass blowing to life. Snodgrass became the forefather of today's functional glass.

"He incorporated taking clear tubes of glass, fuming them with actual silver and gold, and creating different designs," said Steve Sclafani, owner of Full Tank, Burlington's premier glass gallery.

Snodgrass was the first to figure out that when certain metals are sprayed into the glass, they change colors as the smoke blackens the inside of the pipe. This process, known as fuming, helped gold and silver become some of the most widely used metals in glass blowing because of the vibrant blues and yellows that appear.

Since Snodgrass' discovery, the past two decades have been a renaissance in the field of blowing functional glass art. The quality of work that blowers put into their pieces now goes far beyond what was possible 20 years ago.

Functional glass art is formed by blowing Pyrex glass into elaborate functional tobacco pipes with colors and designs dispersed throughout the piece. Inside-out, magnifiers, reverse spirals, millies, and dychro are just a few terms that have been developed over the years to describe different kinds of designs within a piece.

"In glass right now, blowers are making the pieces works of art before they're even a functional piece," added Sclafani. "Blowing glass pipes has definitely developed into an art form more than just a hobby. It's work you would see in a museum," he said.

When glass pipes were in their youth, Grateful Dead parking lots were the only place for artists to sell their work. As the popularity grew, stores in which pieces could be purchased started showing up more and more. With the amount of stores increasing, the quality of work being produced only got better.

"We've got to compete with what's going on in the west, and it keeps all the east coast artists pushing the limits," commented Jonah. "If you're sitting next to someone who's blowing glass, you want your work to be cleaner, tighter, and five bucks less."

Kellie Alpert, owner of the glass shop, Threads of Zion, in Burlington, feels that the competition for sales in the industry has been positive. "The artists trying to get their stuff into the stores are trying to outdo each other so the competition is only making the work better," she said.

The ability for the work to improve is largely due to the growth in the amount of colors available to glass blowers now.

"I think what's going on with inside-out glass now has a lot to do with the colors, because two years ago we had maybe thirty colors from Northstar and they were all pretty bland," Said Jonah. "Being able to fill in what we already have, with these true rainbow colors, changes everything for us."

Now artists are able to incorporate their various designs of the past with the colors of today, leaving awe-inspiring pieces of art in their tracks.

Jonah is optimistic about the future of his art. "Blowers are more getting more cutting edge," he believes, adding that "the newest stuff I see happening is multi-layer inside-out, different effects with color, and outside work with color…effects that people won't see until they take it home and smoke out of the pipe."

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