Visiting Artist Series: Preston Singletary

March 3–5, 2023

Preston Singletary's work fuses time-honored glassblowing traditions with Pacific Northwest Indigenous art to honor his ancestral Tlingit heritage, a tribe in southern Alaska. Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight, currently on view at the Chrysler Museum, tells the Tlingit origin story of Raven and his transformation of the world—bringing light to people via the stars, moon, and sun. Raven leads visitors on a fantastical journey through the transformation of darkness into light. Singletary's art creates a theatrical atmosphere in which his striking glass pieces enhance the unfolding storyline.

While at the Perry Glass Studio, Singletary worked with two of his incredibly skilled team members and renowned artists in their own right, Ross Richmond and Sean Albert. They focused on the glass blowing and hot sculpting that is a signature of Singletary’s work. Together, the artists made “parts” or components of the sculptures, which were kept at 1000 F, and then “assembled hot” to make the finished work.