Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight

Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight is now open at OKCMOA! This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington and Preston Singletary and presented by The Chickasaw Nation. This exhibition is curated by Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit), PhD, and the multisensory visitor experience was designed by zoe | juniper.

 

The multi-sensory experience combines glass, video, and audio to tell the story of Raven, a creator figure in Northwest Coast Native American culture, who was the giver of the stars, moon, and sun. Raven takes visitors on a transformative journey through darkness into light. In addition to Singletary’s striking glass pieces, the exhibition features storytelling paired with original music, coastal Pacific Northwest soundscapes, and video.

 

Singletary’s work fuses time-honored glassblowing traditions with Pacific Northwest Indigenous art to honor his ancestral Tlingit heritage, a tribe in southern Alaska. Tlingit (KLING-kit) culture and oral tradition have a rich history of pairing objects with foundational stories and histories of tribal families. By drawing upon this method of visual storytelling, Singletary’s art creates a theatrical atmosphere in which each object follows and enhances the narrative.

 

 

ABOUT PRESTON SINGLETARY (TLINGIT)

Photo by Jovelle Tamayo. Courtesy of the American Craft Council Library and Archives.

Singletary’s art has become synonymous with the relationship between Tlingit culture and fine art. His glass sculptures deal with themes of Tlingit mythology and traditional designs, while also using music to shape his contemporary perspective of Native culture. 

Singletary started blowing glass at the Glass Eye studios in Seattle, WA in 1982, where he grew up and continues to work and live. He developed his skills as a production glass maker and attended the Pilchuck Glass School. Singletary began working at the glass studio of Benjamin Moore, where he broadened his skills by assisting Dante Marioni, Richard Royal, Dan Dailey, and Lino Tagliapietra. It was there where Singletary started to develop his own work. In 1993 he traveled for work to Sweden where he was influenced by Scandinavian design and met his future wife, Åsa Sandlund. 

In 2000 Singletary received an honorary name from elder, Joe David (Nuu Chah Nulth), and in 2009 Singletary received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA). Forty years of glass making, creating music, and working together with elders has put him in a position of being a keeper of cultural knowledge, while forging new directions in new materials and concepts of Indigenous arts. 

Now recognized internationally, Singletary’s works are included in the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), the Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA), the Ethnographic Museum (Stockholm, Sweden), The National Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh, UK) The British Museum (London, UK), The National Museum of The American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (Washington DC) as well as two solo exhibitions that toured multiple venues originating with the Museum of Glass (Tacoma, WA).

 

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Image Credit: Preston Singletary (American Tlingit, born 1963). Gagaan Awutáawu Yéil (Raven Steals the Sun), Made at the Museum of Glass in 2008. Blown, hot-sculpted, and sand-carved glass; 9 1/2 x 26 x 9 1/2 in. Collection of Museum of Glass, Tacoma, gift of the artist. Photo by Russell Johnson.