Glassworks by Preston Singletary
Preston had more than a decade of experience working on the teams for various master glass-artists before he began to make works that combined his own Tlingit heritage and traditional objects with blown glass. He has occupied a unique position as an aboriginal artist who trained solely in glass.
Singletary has traveled extensively to study international glass techniques, including visits to Sweden and Finland. He is considered the bridge-artist between glass blowing and Northwest Coast art, which are the two dominant art forms of the Pacific Northwest. Singletary has worked with many other aboriginal artists now interested in the glass medium and who have recognized the potential of the glass medium as a possible new direction.
Today, his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is included in such collections as the Seattle Art Museum, the new National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution, and the Museum of History and Art in Anchorage.
His solo-exhibition “Preston Singletary: Echoes, Fire, and Shadows” was unveiled at the Tacoma Museum of Glass in 2009 and is currently touring to major institutions across North America. This collection is documented in a book by the same name and is published in the United States by the Tacoma Museum of Glass and in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Publishers.