“If I have a 0.1% impact on helping change the public perception of a stoner, a bong smoker, I will consider that a victory” – The Peashooter
Around a year ago, as I scrolled through the endless posts of glass art, glass pipes and other cannabis related things on social media, one video really caught my attention.
It was a man out in public, laying out a glass bong on the bustling New York city streets to the startled gaze of the pedestrians and tourists going about their day. He proceeded to smoke completely unfazed to all around him, resulting in hilarious reactions from passers-by and, best of all, the confusion of local police officers.
There was something deliciously subversive about this brazen prankster, which is what I called him for lack of a better term, I instantly wanted to know more. He struck me as a master of disruption. Perhaps a fitting way to describe this agent provocateur might be as the “Banksy of Bongs”. However, he goes by a different name, known to his followers as The Peashooter.
Artists: Eusheen X Akio – “Energy Loop”
Artist: Crownquiat “The Persistence of Cannabis”
Scratching beneath the surface of his cheeky videos which capture his exhibitionist style of smoking pot in public, which have a theatrical feel to them based on the reactions from the crowd he receives, one can find The Peashooter has dotted around almost every location of New York, as well as many other cities.
His aim is to pull people in with something accessible and fun, like a bong rip in public, and then invite them to learn something afterwards. I found this to be an enormously fresh and unique approach to everything else saturating the world of social media, and I followed along for the ride enjoying reel after reel of the ‘guy with a bong in public’ theme.
But as intriguing as this was, I saw The Peashooter had gone a step further into something more fascinating.
As my last article had just appeared hot off the press, Bongs of Canada, I noticed that the self-styled journalist had gone to the effort of creating an entire art exhibition around bongs, held recently in New York City. Titled The Art of Subversion, held at REHS Galleries in Midtown Manhattan, the show and its founder were seeking to elevate the art of glass pipes and bongs into the realms of the most priceless street and body art, to shine a new light on it for the uninitiated, and to pay respect to the exquisite labor which goes into creating some of these works of art.
Artist: JP Toro – “Triple Uptake Vortex Recycler (Grateful Dead Theme)”
Artist: Lennie Vuitton “Emotions of the Hooligan”
I asked The Peashooter about the concept behind the idea to put an art exhibition built around bongs, which is the first of its type I have seen.
“It struck me that I grew up in the art world. The gallery where I put the show on is my family’s business – my great grandfather started the gallery in the 1930s and it’s been in the family ever since. We predominantly deal in paintings, but I’ve grown up in the New York art scene collecting paintings, and exposed to this for so long, it struck me as strange when I got into collecting glass that I’d never been exposed to any glass art in any meaningful way, which is why I wanted to bring it to the gallery.”
The exhibition, dedicated to paying homage to some of the finest glass artists in the world, is designed to recontextualize the world of glass pipes by placing them in the setting of a fine art gallery, and to help establish the importance of the history behind this oft-misunderstood craft.
The show features bespoke pieces created – especially for the exhibition – by some of the biggest and most famous artists in the glass world, including Banjo, JP Toro, Swiss Perc, Nate Dizzle, Sam Lyons, and Eusheen just to name a few. The glass was shown alongside street-art paintings and mural style work from artists such as Crownquiat, Chris Guest and Lennie Vuitton.
Artist: Banjo – “Meditating Annunaki”
Artist: Eric Hagan “Madam”
Incredible art aside, this is not simply an exhibition built to showcase these various art forms – one of its goals is to initiate a broader conversation about how this kind of artwork is understood in our modern world, and how the everyday cannabis user is seen and accepted in new ways by society.
When we meet on our Zoom call on a warm October morning in California, The Peashooter is much as I expect him to be, perhaps more eloquent and energetic than I hoped.
He waxed lyrical about the videos which are his own maverick style of art: “The first video I shot for The Peashooter Instagram page was in Times Square. After that it was Washington Square Park, under the archway. At first it was just to document an iconic monument and smoke with it in the background. But when I researched the park, I found it was steeped in so much history, such as civil rights era movements and women’s rights, and with all these newfound rights throughout American history that involved marches happening in these famous locations.
I felt there was a deep connection between these events to our newfound freedom with smoking in New York. A lot of these spaces we frequent, we don’t really have the understanding that something profound has happened here. So this was just a cool way for me to explore my local area I grew up in, share it and learn more about it.”
Artist: Sam Lyons – “Blueberry Lime Flower Tube”
Artist: Sean Sullivan “Fools and Kings”
Asking further about the trajectory from this earlier idea to presenting glass pipes as art, he commented:
“The reason why I do this is because I think there’s still this negative connotation of what a bong smoker is in our society. And it’s always like this hippie-style of person, who is presented as lazy, unfocused and always falling asleep. I think that holds back the movement because the general public still associates cannabis with those types of people.”
To others I have shown his work to, he seems almost like a type of Banksy figure, but this feels like an easy way to put a label on someone whose work is so meticulously curated and amasses hundreds of thousands of views on social media. But in a similar fashion to the reclusive stencilist, there feels like there’s a deliberate purpose behind the ideas.
Perhaps he can be considered the first of his kind – a viral video artist.
“When New York went legal, we were different in a sense that we now allow public consumption [of cannabis on the street], which is the only place I know of in the world where people can do it on the street. Here, the vast majority of people are renters, and there are so many restrictions on tobacco in the apartments.”
Artist: Alik Bures “Athena”
Artist: Eric Hagan “A Cliché About a Lie”
Subversion can be defined as the undermining of the power and authority of an established system of institution.
“While we have this cannabis legalization and normalization happening, if you can shift the perspective of the doctor, the lawyer, whoever it is that has the disposable income and may collect paintings and spend $15,000 on a painting, and they can walk into a gallery and say here’s an $8,000 or $12,000 bong, that’s not such a crazy thing – I can appreciate the quality of the work, I can afford it, this is an interesting thing I want to own and that can change the narrative and perspective of the whole scene.
So, as we wrap up our conversation which seems to have lasted for hours, I ask him what comes next?
“I plan to do a show like this every year. There might be a bigger idea I’m exploring. I don’t want to say much.” I pry him to give me more information because I’m fascinated at the myriad ideas that could transpire from this one. “It might revolve around more of a retail-oriented space,” he finishes with a wry smile.
Visit the REHS Galleries here to learn more about The Art of Subversion Exhibition and artwork.
Check out The Peashooter and his videos on Instagram
All photos courtesy of REHS Galleries.
Dr. StrainLove is a long time lover of fine weed and is always hunting for the latest and greatest strains. His search has taken him from the Coffeeshops of Amsterdam to the boutique dispensaries of California, and lots of other places in between. He loves making music, playing video games, and using marijuana to ponder the mysteries of the universe. When he’s not doing those things, he enjoys spending time with his cat.
