High-End Glass Art Is Alive and Well at Elbo's New Store

For many artists — glassblowers, painters, sculptors, you name it — there comes a time when they want complete control over how their work is seen and displayed in public.

For Matt Selbovitz, known to high-end pipe and art collectors as Elbo, that time is now, even as talks of the "glass game" being dead circulate around the stoner water cooler.

"I'm trying to properly display my ideas, and I can't do that without full control," he tells Westword while standing inside his new Elbo Store at 3325 Brighton Boulevard in RiNo on the day of its grand opening last month.

"I've seen how my stuff is presented in other shops, and I'm not necessarily all that happy with it," Elbo explains, ringing up customers and bagging up their goodies himself.

"I want to do it on my own."

Elbo is currently one of the co-owners and flame workers at Everdream Studio in Evergreen, a glassblowing haven for top artists like Eusheen Goines, N8 Miers and others. But he's never ventured into opening one of his own stores before. "It feels really good to see the vision come to fruition for real now that it's up and running," he says. "I think the potential as a creative outlet for me is the most exciting part."

Elbo, who moved to Colorado in 2013, will be working with Purple Haze — one of Denver's oldest and most well-known head shops — to run his new store and hold events at it. The gallery is located directly behind a Purple Haze that opened earlier this year and is a comfortable mix between glass art studio (there's a torch and bench in the back) and high-end smoke boutique, with Elbo's famous dinosaur pipes, clothing, toys and jewelry, including "Boflex" watches and dino plushies, all available to purchase.

"It's supposed to be, like, a Supreme-vibe type of situation for our scene," Elbo says, referencing the trendy clothing and lifestyle brand. "This is my ideal store that I would want to pull up on. Also, it's very glass-centered. That's why I put the glass studio in, because I want there to be glass education, let people see the process."

Some of Elbo's most sought-after glass pipes — Raptors and Recyclerdactyls, for example — have sold for upwards of $10,000 to $15,000 depending on the size, style and colors. Collaborations with other renowned artists like Mike Luna and Darby Holm can go for anywhere between $25,000 and $50,000 or more.
For lesser-known artists and collectors, the prices and values of glass pieces have dipped in recent years for a variety of reasons, with popular glassblowers across the country and collectors offering up their takes on why on YouTube and social media.

"Some people have felt it really hard," Elbo says.

Staff at local head shops like Positive Vibes and Purple Haze tell Westword they've seen the dips for themselves. The economy, along with changing trends and an influx of mediocre artists in the glass game, have been blamed.

Elbo believes two factors have played a major role: increasing and decreasing marijuana prices and more knowledgeable glass buyers.

"There's been a lot of bullshit sliding for a long time, and it doesn't slide anymore," he says. "Nice pieces still get collected and bought and sold. So I don't think the community has died down at all. I think it's the same. I think people are just becoming more educated and are not willing to spend an arm and a leg for something that's not worth that."

Explaining how marijuana prices have played a role, Elbo notes how collectors and glass traders will often do cannabis "med trades" in exchange for pieces that were originally sold or traded for far more than what the pot is worth.
"There's a direct correlation between weed prices and glass," he says. "When people do med trades, you're, like, pegging a pound of weight to that piece. 'This piece is worth ten pounds.' So maybe ten years ago it was forty bands, but maybe now it's only five grand."

Eusheen, another internationally known legend in the glass community, tells Westword that taking creative risks like Elbo is taking is exactly what artists need to do as people debate whether the glass scene is still alive or pipes are still as profitable as they used to be.

"This is the perfect thing to do, exactly," he says. "It helps us all remember that, you know, we're a community and we all really love each other and want to just hang out and have these events. When we have these harder times, we feel like we can't get through it. But that's wrong. We need to be coming together, and we need to be collaborating."

Eusheen calls the Elbo Store a great example of how the glass game could move forward. He praises Elbo for bridging the gap between the cannabis world and mainstream pop culture thanks to collabs with popular streetwear brands like The Hundreds, which make him stand out as more than just a glass artist.

In fact, some people who approach him for projects don't even know he specializes in making pipes — that's how big Elbo has become.

"When The Hundreds approached me to do the collaboration, we were talking, and I showed [Bobby Hundreds] my Instagram and I showed him a Darby, Mike Luna and me collab. And he was like, 'What the fuck is this?'" Elbo remembers. "And I go, 'It's glass.' He was like, 'Wait, what?' I said, 'Yeah, the dinosaurs come from glass pieces that I make.'"

Elbo calls it "the icing on the cake," saying: "A lot of people see it now, and they don't know."

Moving forward, Elbo plans to open at least two more stores in the future — one in Thailand and another in Europe, likely Germany. "This is essentially phase one," he says. "The next phase is I'm actively opening a store in Thailand. That will be my Asia base. I think, simultaneously, it'll be inspiring for me creatively."

Elbo says that with decriminalized marijuana blowing up in Thailand (it was later re-criminalized, but the culture remains) and the plant now being legal in Germany, the two countries present numerous possibilities for his brand to grow. Germany legalized cannabis at the start of April, and its GDP economy has grown to be the world's third largest after passing Japan in February.

"As soon as Germany legalized cannabis, I got four DMs from people in Germany trying to set up with us," Elbo says. "We've always said that when cannabis becomes more accepted, this kind of art form would get more accepted and more looked at."

For many people, collecting glass is bigger than making money or having a cool rig to smoke out of. It's about the community that the artists regularly speak about and promote, and the hole that glass can fill in the hearts of people searching for something to connect with.

For Connor Gray, a 27-year-old from Alaska, that's exactly what made him fly all the way out for the Elbo Store opening on April 6.

"I had been down bad about a lot of stuff," Gray says, noting how he shelled out thousands to travel to Denver from Anchorage. "My parents had kind of been in a rough position. My dad has cancer and my mom, she works her ass off. They went down to Arizona. And this sort of just came up at the perfect time."

Gray bought his plane ticket down to the lower 48 roughly three weeks before the store opening. "I was just like, 'Dude, I need this,'" he recalls. "It had been one of my goals for a long time. Elbo puts a lot into his events and for his fans, and he makes me feel like I'm part of a community and truly welcomed."

Asked if the new store was everything he was expecting and had hoped for, Gray says: "It's more. You can tell he wanted to do something to shine a light on his work and have fun with it while giving back to his fans."

According to Elbo, that was his whole goal.

"For me, this is creatively exciting," he says. "I have this space and I can essentially do whatever I want, and it's set up in a way to do whatever I want. So I'm most excited to keep filling the space up with new stuff and to keep doing things for this community. I have a lot of really cool collaborations planned this year with some larger companies. And there will be some exclusive releases through the store."