Meet the Berkshire Bong Artist Rob Johnston, Making Handmade Ceramic Bongs in The Berkshire Hills
My name is Rob Johnston, and I'm the founder, artist, web designer, photographer, and shipping department of The Berkshire Bong Company. I started this company in 2017, but honestly, the story behind it goes back a lot further than that.
Where It Started
I fell in love with ceramics in middle school, and by high school I was hooked for good. In 1984, when I was sixteen, I got my first real job in clay: a summer position at Sheffield Pottery in Sheffield, Massachusetts. That job changed the direction of my life. Sheffield Pottery was a small family-run operation back then, and they taught me everything. How to formulate a clay body (it's a lot like baking, honestly, a recipe of different ingredients that all have to work together), how to make casting slip, how to develop glaze recipes from scratch, how to throw on the wheel, and even how to pack and ship finished work.
Sheffield Pottery is still family run today, now one of the largest ceramic supply companies in the country, and John & Diane Cowen (the owners) have remained among my closest friends for the four decades since. Good things in the Berkshires just seem to stay in your life.
I actually started making ceramic bongs back in the late 1980s, mostly for myself and high school friends. It wasn't a business then — just a young guy messing around in clay with the skills I'd just learned. But the idea never really left me.
A Lifetime in Clay
Over the years since, I've made thousands of pieces: functional dinnerware, mugs, and plenty of bongs and water pipes along the way. Ceramics has just always been part of how I spend my days. Today I work out of a home studio in New Marlborough, Massachusetts, with a full kiln setup, glazing station, room for my potters wheel and drying shelves. Professional enough to do real production work, but close enough that I can step into the studio any time inspiration hits.
When I finally decided to turn bong making into a real company in 2017, I didn't just pick up where I'd left off in the '80s. I spent a long time thinking about and refining the design of the perfect ceramic bong. The shape, the proportions, the function, the way the whole piece feels in your hand from the mouth piece to the foot before I ever offered a single one for sale. What you see in the shop today is the result of a lot of trial, error, and stubborn attention to detail. I wanted to make what I genuinely believe is the best version of a handmade ceramic water pipe ever, not just another quick mass produced one.
Roots in the Berkshire Hills
The Berkshires aren't just where I happen to live, they're in my blood. My family's roots here, in Berkshire County Massachusetts, go back to the early 1800s. My home and studio sit in New Marlborough, right in what locals call South County, the southern end of Berkshire County. I'm within walking distance of the homes where my great-great-grandparents lived, and my nearest neighbor is the old New England farmhouse where my grandfather was born in 1923. I'm literally making art on the same hills my family has called home for two hundred years.
If you've never been, the Berkshire Hills are a special kind of place. Rolling hills, deep woods, and a real magic to the landscape that's drawn visitors from around the world for generations. This is the region that's home to Tanglewood, MASS MoCA, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and Jacob's Pillow, and it's long been a magnet for artists, writers, and second home owners from New York City and beyond. The Berkshires have carried a reputation for art and natural beauty that reaches well past New England. People travel here from around the world just to experience these hills. That same woodland, hill country feeling is exactly what shows up in my glazes and my art: earthy tones, natural textures, the colors of the forest and the hills I grew up in, right here in South County. It's not a style I copied from somewhere, it's just what's around me every day in this small corner of Berkshire County that's meant so much to my family for so long.
What This Means for You
Every piece I make is genuinely one of a kind, shaped by decades of learning this craft and in a place that's been part of my family for two centuries. I've been proud to supply dispensaries throughout Berkshire County, from South County towns like mine up through the rest of the Berkshires, and across Massachusetts more broadly. And every single piece that leaves my studio has been through my hands from the first pour of slip to the final photograph on the website.
When you hold one of these bongs, you're holding a little piece of the Berkshire Hills, a region known the world over for its art and its magic. Every bong made by someone who's spent his whole life in clay and in a place that's been home to his family for longer than most towns have existed.
Thanks for taking the time to get to know me a bit. If you want to see exactly how each piece comes together, from the mold to the glaze to the final firing, check out the next post, I walk through the whole process step by step.