PRESTON SINGLETARY (1963-) TLINGIT

The inverted hat was the result of a Eureka moment for Preston Singletary that occurred early in his experimentation to adapt traditional Tlingit forms and designs to art glass. When the hat was inverted, the light would strike the translucent glass and splay the design across the tabletop offering another dimension to the sculpture.

Singletary would create a series of hats each year for over a decade and has periodically returned to the form with new concepts that include both woven patterns and traditional formline painted designs etched into the glass. The hat forms are based on the meticulously woven spruce root and cedar bark hats that were traditionally woven with dense patterns by master weavers from across the Northwest Coast.

Singletary rose to international prominence as part of the Seattle glass art movement in the 1980s. After years of exploring Venetian style art glass, Singletary understood that glass could imitate a wide range of materials including several very different materials within the same piece – something that he saw often in the carved and painted pieces created by his Tlingit ancestors. This led him to concentrate fully on Northwest Coast art pieces. He is a graduate of the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington and has served on their board of governors, and was instrumental in creating an Indigenous Artist in Residence program that ran for several years in the early 2000s. He has worked in collaboration with numerous world master Indigenous artists to push the possibilities of art glass. His recent solo exhibition Raven and the Box of Daylight has been exhibited at major galleries and museums internationally.

Gary Wyatt

References: For additional information about Preston Singletary’s glass work, see Jodi Simpson, ed., Native American Art, (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts / MFA Publications, 2010), p. 43.