Sustainers’ Preview Event Schedule:
Wednesday, November 8 | 5-8 pm
5 pm | Cocktail Reception by Kam’s Kookery | Museum Lobby
6 pm | Conversation with Preston Singletary | Noble Theater
8 pm | Exhibition Closes | Third Floor Galleries
Join Preston Singletary (Tlingit) in an intimate conversation about his artistic work, cultural influences, and the exhibition Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight. Through dozens of glass sculptures, projections, and sound, the exhibition presents a Tlingit origin story, passed down from generation to generation through storytelling traditions, of Raven and how the light was brought to the world by releasing the stars, moon, and sun.
RSVP to 405.278.8207 or rsvp@okcmoa.com. Not a Sustainer member? Click here to learn more about the many exclusive benefits of Sustainer membership! All levels of OKCMOA members are welcome at the Members’ Preview Celebration on Friday, November 10.
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). Xáat (Salmon), 2018. Blown, hot-sculpted, and sand-carved glass; steel stand; 89 1/4 x 25 1/2 x 3 in. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Russell Johnson.
