Meet Riley Brain | Founder, Wandering Bud

We had the good fortune of connecting with Riley Brain and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Riley, do you have a favorite quote or affirmation?
The power of “yet” – this comes from the book Mindset by Carol Dweck. When I started Wandering Bud, I was a full-time public school teacher. My principal assigned this book as required reading for teachers over the Summer. The book presents the idea that there are two types of people: those with fixed mindsets who believe we are born with our skills and abilities (think “they are so talented; I could never do that”) and those with growth mindsets who believe we have the ability to learn anything through guidance and practice.

Like any entrepreneur, I had fears about starting my own business. Entrepreneurs wear so many hats; it’s impossible to be an expert in everything we do. Whenever I come across something I don’t know how to do, I remind myself that I don’t know YET, but I can learn. It’s really a comforting concept that brings me a lot of peace in the midst of stressful situations.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
In August of 2016, I sat at the desk of what I thought was my dream job as a music teacher a top school district, dreading the start of the impending school year. Teaching is such important work, but I realized it wasn’t fulfilling for me, personally. I texted Donald that day and told him I was going to start an Etsy shop. I wasn’t completely sure what I wanted to make just yet, but I had always loved and excelled at making art, and I thought it would make me happy.

I reflected on a trip I had taken to Portland, OR that Summer. I had visited a dispensary for the first time and was surprised to see shelves packed with the same novelty glass pipes we had in the midwest. I wondered why there was such little innovation in pipe design when it was clear that cannabis legalization was on its way, even if slowly.

So, I asked my art teacher colleague a few questions about her kiln and decided to track down a similar model secondhand. With $700 from my Grandpa, I bought a used kiln, set up a small studio in my basement, and started experimenting with ceramic pipe design. I had only high school-level experience in ceramics.

In the beginning (and really for the first few years), I was limited by my skillset. I had big ideas but didn’t have the skill to execute. So, my first pipe design was a simple cylindrical one hitter. We still make a more refined version of that original design today. As I developed my technical ceramic skills, my pipes became more complicated and eventually, more refined.

The first time I remember feeling really proud of a piece came about three years in. I personally prefer smoking out of water pipes but hated the aesthetic look of traditional glass bubblers and bongs. I wanted to make something sculptural that could act as an abstract art object or even a bud vase when not in use. So, I sketched some ideas and landed on the design that would become our bubbler. I had recently learned how to make plaster molds for slip casting and utilized that technique. Surprisingly to me, every cast I tried initially kept collapsing. I asked an artist friend who suggested I add a vent to my mold, and that fixed the problem! I made an initial batch of about a dozen bubblers. They all sold out within an hour. The next batch sold out even more quickly. This was such an exciting time for me; the piece I was most proud of designing and making developed somewhat of a cult following, which is just an indescribably cool feeling.

The Bubbler’s success was the launching pad I needed to grow Wandering Bud. Two years later, I’ve hired four employees and moved out of the basement and into a studio. I love working with a team of dedicated women who genuinely care about each piece that comes out of the studio. We have collectively developed our skills even further and just launched our second water pipe, Flora. Flora is an intricate ceramic bong that is modeled after a vintage glass decanter. When I look at Flora, I see years of hard work and skill-development that went into creating a piece that is equally highly functional and aesthetically beautiful. I could not have made Flora five years ago, though the vision was always to get here.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
This is going to sound cheesy, but it’s absolutely my partner, Donald. He hates when I give him credit and claims he doesn’t do anything, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Entrepreneurship was a completely foreign concept to me ten years ago. His steady encouragement is the reason I took Wandering Bud from a lofty idea to a real business and continues to be the reason I push through the big challenges.

Website: https://www.wanderingbud.com/

Instagram: instagram.com/wanderingbud

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WanderingBud

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChR_MNN2-dJbe2VRuslXgjg/featured

Other: https://www.patreon.com/wanderingbud https://www.tiktok.com/@wanderingbud?

Image Credits
Alyssa Broadus Lauren Pusateri