“Art helps people say things they don’t always have the words for,” Eric Sellew said. Sellew is the founder and CEO of ZZZ’s Collective, a smoking accessory company founded on the idea that art makes everything better, even if it’s just some rolling papers.
Train cars and cargo containers have only ever benefited from reckless amounts of colorful graffiti scrawled all over them. When that collage of color rushes by you and you’re trying to decipher the beautiful, illegible words only the artist can read, you forget how annoyed you are that you’re late for work. That’s what art is supposed to do, after all: make existence more tolerable, even if it’s only for a few wonderful, fleeting moments.
ZZZ’s Collective was started during COVID while Sellew was rolling a joint on a bland rolling tray with name-brand rolling papers and saw a vacuum that could be elevated with a splash of creativity.
“From the beginning, we decided to wrap packaging in full artwork instead of logos or branding,” Sellew said.
After reaching out to a classmate who designed the first ZZZ’s Collective joint pack, the idea quickly took shape and evolved into a platform to help support independent artists through sales of joint papers, rolling trays, and merch.
French Hemp >
No matter how good the artwork is, the joint paper has to be better. You could raise fucking Pablo Picaso from the dead to paint his next masterpiece on your rolling tray, but nobody cares if the paper wrapped around their weed tastes like shit. This is why all of ZZZ’s papers are made from hemp sourced from southern France.
France has been cultivating hemp for hundreds of years, probably since the Middle Ages. Napoleon banned hemp imports during his war campaigns to emphasize a strong manufacturing base for French hemp. In the 1800s, it was widely considered the best hemp in the world and was exported for maritime ropes and textiles. The French never cracked down on hemp cultivation or production when it was a popular practice around the world in the 20th century, which is why they’re still producing high-quality hemp to this day.
For Sellew, French hemp had several key selling points: it’s an incredibly sustainable paper source from some of the oldest paper mills in the world, burns smoothly, and dampens the flower’s flavor the least.
Not to mention, there’s something alluring and emblematic about smoking paper milled in France, a country known for creating some of the finest art, wine, and food in the history of mankind.
Joining ZZZ’s Collective
ZZZ’s Collective is always taking submissions for new artists. Sellew assembled an art committee to help him source artwork for the brand. The 20-person art committee consists of his friends, colleagues, and other artists who find designs that align with the brand and will gather attention on retail shelves. Based out of Boston, ZZZ’s Collective just released two collaborations with local artists Allan Sousa (Love in the Time of Corona) and Adam O’Day (Alltopia).
O’Day’s design also covers a magnetic rolling tray. The magnetic cover conceals the goods from nosy in-laws or the Mormon missionaries peeking through your windows and ringing your doorbell so they can tell you what a cool guy Joseph Smith was.
“In the coming months, we are excited to announce collabs with Trap Bob, Tanner Valant, Barc, and a new piece by Mexico City-based artist Joaquin Carreño, Sellew said. “Carreño will be featured on our first-ever King Size Wide Paper + Tips pack.”
Cannabis + Art
Cannabis use has always been interwoven with the artist lifestyle simply because cannabis fuels art. Sousa spends most of his day getting high, working on art, because this is how many artists help entice and evoke their muse.
Art and cannabis have always been and will always be simpatico. Like Biggie Smalls and East Coast hip-hop or Gordon Ramsay calling some desperate line cook a shit-sandwich, these things are impossible to separate for good reason.
It’s fitting that, after cannabis use has inspired so much art throughout the course of human history, it’s helping put some money back into artists’ pockets. Whether you’re the one painting the pictures, buying the prints for or rolling fat doinks with French milled hemp papers on a designer rolling tray {damn, that sounds baller, doesn’t it?} “A life lived for art is never a life wasted,” Ben Haggerty once said.
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Feature Image: @spookygirlart via @zzzsrollingpapers on Instagram
