Tito Bern

By
HeadQuest

Tito Bern
Burlington, Vermont
facebook.com/tito.bern

Tito Bern is surrounded by glass. Not only has Bern been a professional glass blower since 1999, he’s also the owner of Bern Glass Gallery, in Burlington, Vermont, and is the guiding force behind the Pipe Classic, one of the longest running and most esteemed functional glass competitions on the planet.

“I’ve always been in love with the art of pipe making,” says Bern, who got into pipe making back when it was a very secretive art and there was no internet to learn from or promote your work.

Bern began as a straight production glass blower making sherlocks, spoons and bubblers. It wasn’t until he opened Bern Gallery in 2014 that he switched to creating headie pieces. The smoke shop gave him an outlet to sell his own work as well as that of other local artists.

“All the glass blowers knew that I was one of them,” he says. “I was building a business that was all about local glass blowers.”

The Pipe Classic began as an unofficial contest among Bern’s in-house production workers. “Production can be boring and tedious. To make it more interesting, we would have friendly competitions — who could make the fastest spoon, who could make the fastest head piece and sell it for the most money,” Bern says.

Bern continues to make pipes — his latest series are sculptural rigs featuring wolves and gargoyles.

“As an artist, it’s very much whatever I want,” he says about inspiration for his pieces. “I’m definitely a traditional pipe maker in the sense that my pipes need to function excellently – it’s very much about form and function.”

“As an industry person, you’ve got to innovate every second; if you sit in your laurels for two seconds you’ll be run over by the army waiting to take you out,” he adds.

Bern is quick to give credit for some of that innovation to one of his glass blowers —- Dr. Whitestone.

“He’ll help me with the idea, and then my speciality is turning it into a functional piece,” Bern says. “He helped me work on my patented ‘up-wave perv’ so that you can hit it as hard as you want, but you’ll never drink water.”

Another innovation to come out of the Bern studio is the “Plasma Pipe” – basically, a hollow tube that is filled with a combination of inert gasses that spark to life when electrified.

“I love the reactions that pieces get,” Bern says. “I like to keep my pieces vary rare – there will never be a hundred pieces of mine that look the same.”

“I feel like I have no choice,” Bern says when asked why he does what he does. “This business plucked me out of the world and sucked me in – I swear it runs through my blood.”

Tito Bern • Bern Glass Gallery • Burlington, Vermont •
facebook.com/tito.bern

 

Recent Stories

Recent Articles

CBD 3
By
Jimmy Wohl
Lung, Tongue, and Skin
I went home and told my girlfriend, who, after Googling the name of the business I bought it from, told me that, yes, it was technically weed. But it was CBD. She started laughing, telling me I had been ripped off.
banking 2
By
Joe Reefer
High Risk, High Cash: The Banking Struggles of Legal Cannabis
State-sanctioned medical and recreational cannabis programs benefit the average user in many ways. Still, they remain a double-edged sword for dispensary owners, greenhouse growers, and others who earn their living from the cannabis industry. There are plenty of profits to be had, sure, but how exactly are you expected to secure your cash or process electronic transactions when banks refuse to work with you?
WIC 2
By
Emily Long
Women in Cannabis – Aubrey Amatelli
Aubrey Amatelli wants to help dispensaries and cannabis retailers navigate one of the toughest parts of the industry: money. When the company she worked for right out of grad school was acquired by JPMorgan, Aubrey entered the complex world of payments and has stayed there for her entire career.
MJ 1
By
Matt Weeks
Building the Best: How the MJBizCon Gets Made
There’s a paradox to business conferences. The best ones manage to swing from buttoned down to wildly unscripted—sometimes seconds apart. For attendees, it’s the combination of personal connections and professional development that makes regular trips to conferences worthwhile. And in an industry like this one, pulling that off is harder than it looks.
staffing 1
By
Karen Maina
Staff Your Shop And Build Your Tribe
Your shop is not only a smoke shop; It's also a hangout spot and a community hub. It is a place where the regulars know your staff by name, and your staff knows what the regulars need. That's the secret sauce that the big-box chains can't replicate, and it starts with who you put behind the counter. A well-staffed smoke shop is an operational strategy, but it's also a community. In lean economic times, that community is what keeps the lights on. When people feel like your shop is their spot, they don't stop coming in when money's tight. They prioritize it. It all starts with Hiring.
2026-06-01_20-59-01
By
Emily Long
Women in Cannabis – Dr. Chanda Macias
Dr. Macias first fell in love with science while studying at Howard University, where she completed her undergraduate studies and later earned her PhD in cellular and molecular biology. While at Howard, she became especially interested in cancer research due to personal ties. Growing up in a Creole family and predominantly Black community in Louisiana, Dr. Macias watched many women around her battle breast cancer, so at Howard, she decided to focus her research on the BRCA1 gene.
2026-06-01_20-45-52
By
Matt Weeks
Cards Denied: Smoke Shops, Dispensaries, and the Paradox of Modern Banking
It’s almost amazing that the same institutions that brought us the 2008 financial crisis have a problem with selling glass pipes. Almost. The truth is that an industry's past sins are only held against it when the money isn’t right. Big banks were willing to risk cratering the U.S. housing market because the profits were too good to ignore. But the cannabis industry rolls a different kind of paper, so instead of a slap on the wrist, it gets a surcharge.
2026-06-01_20-34-44
By
Karen Maina
Print Lives! Why Flyers and Posters Still Work
Smokeshop and counterculture enthusiasts enjoy discovery as part of the experience. Customers enjoy browsing. When they walk into a shop, they don't simply grab a product and leave. They look for something new. This is the main reason flyers and posters still work. Smokeshops and dispensaries are highly visual environments. You want to see bold artwork, psychedelic graphics, and street-style posters that naturally capture attention.