Piper Dan has been in the glass scene for over 2 decades now, and has always been at the forefront of new ideas and designs in his borosilicate creations. Dan was literally one of the first few boro glass artists to start making borosilicate marbles, starting clear back in 1996 when only a few guys like O'Grady, Badtram and Snodgrass were doing marbles. He was the first to incorporate pinwheeling, dotstacking and especially retticellos into his marbles - an early pioneer to the max and the marble world owes a lot to this master! Dan also made pipes, but stopped making them in '98 to focus full time on marbles with his Phish series. He soon became well known for some other glass styles as he started creating his faceted and paddled crystals in '99 and then expanded that into his famous crystal clusters in 2001. A little later on he started creating marbles to incorporate into those crystals, my favorites of the bunch of course! In 2002 Dan reached a new peak in his career by winning the first flameoff in Tucson in 2002, and he would eventually come up with his own series of some VERY special marbles.

From the beginning Dan was interested in creating boro millifiori and did various Grateful Dead and Phish images as well as flowers and other things. Around 2003-04 he brought all that skill together and created a major Skyline murrine scene which he incorporated into his innovative and layered Skyline I series of marbles, and then next came up with his Skyline II series, with this second image being even more complex than the first. These were awesome layered scene marbles and they became highly sought after by collectors at the time.

Dan decided to take a break from glass around 2008 or so to focus on his love of music, and many of us wondered if his incredible talent was gone for good from glass. But that wasn't to be, as he came roaring back in 2013 and is now producing glass art in the form of beautiful and intricate marbles which are better than ever! He has already created two new murrine series of marbles, his Ghost City series, and his latest fantastic series of Eastern Pagoda marbles. I am proud to present some of these for sale here now on Glass ORBits, and you will definitely want some work from this incredible glass artist in your collection!

One last interesting little story - Dan actually started blowing glass in the late 80's, in his high school science glass. He stole some tubes and brought them home to make a Father's Day present for his dad. The rest, as they say, is glass history!! I think it's always interesting to learn how each artist and collector was first introduced to glass and had their love of it fostered.

Please click on a gallery to see more images of each marble and to purchase available marbles. I ship worldwide.