In the crowded corner of a local smoke shop, two artists played with fire in a heated head-to-head competition. With only 20 minutes to complete a randomly selected challenge, rival glassblowers Frankie Esquer, known as Nostalgia, and Marcus Catt, known as Lot Boy, each competed to transform a simple rod of glass into an intricate fairy sculpture.
The competition aired from 6 to 10 p.m. on June 17 as part of a live series hosted by The Glassmith, a local smoke shop founded in West Campus in 2014. Broadcasted from the Airport Boulevard location, “Glass Man Standing” blends high-stakes glassblowing with podcast-style banter and aims to promote the niche art form while appealing to a broader audience.
Now, only seven months after its inception, the show faces an uncertain future under the looming threat of Senate Bill 3, which proposes a statewide ban on hemp-derived THC products. The Glassmith’s founder Billy Marsden said the bill would wipe out a major source of revenue for the smoke shop — the same money that currently allows them to “play around” with big projects like “Glass Man Standing.”
“It’d be nice if we could just play, play, play, and all of a sudden (become) rich and famous, rather than saying, ‘Oh, my God! If we don’t reach this amount of dollars per week, we’re going to have to shut this down,’” Marsden said. “That is not where I want to be.”
Kurt Fisher, The Glassmith’s manager and “Glass Man Standing” producer, said SB 3 could ultimately hurt the glassblowing community in Texas as a whole.
Many glassblowers rely on smoke shops as a top market for artisan glass pipes and bongs. Without the revenue generated by THC sales, smoke shops can’t spend as much money on glassblowers’ art. Fisher said this would be a harsh blow to an already struggling community.
“It’s kind of a dying art right now,” Fisher said. “It can be really hard to get into it and make it sustainable. SB 3 is almost pushing it further that way.”
Esquer is a San Antonio-based glassblower who competes at “Glass Man Standing” almost every week. Over the years, he struggled to support his glassblowing dreams, and he said he nearly sold his equipment and quit until he came across The Glassmith’s weekly competitions, which surrounded Esquer with a vibrant community of fellow glassblowers that helped him collaborate and grow as an artist.
“A lot of the time, I’ve had to hold down multiple jobs to pay for (glassblowing). … I was sleeping in garages when I got into it, and I got no help from anybody,” Esquer said. “I wouldn’t be making it happen if I didn’t have this competition.”
Editor’s note: This story was written before Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed Senate Bill 3 on Sunday, June 22.
