In this artist lecture recorded at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, internationally acclaimed Tlingit glass artist Preston Singletary reflects on the personal history, artistic relationships, cultural traditions, and stories that have shaped his career in contemporary glass.
Singletary traces his path through the international studio glass community, from formative experiences in Sweden and at Pilchuck Glass School to collaborations with artists, designers, writers, and museums around the world. He discusses the ways glass has become a vehicle for storytelling in his work, allowing him to bring together traditional Tlingit imagery, family history, mythology, and contemporary experience.
A central focus of the lecture is Singletary’s ongoing exploration of Raven, one of the most important figures in Tlingit storytelling. Rather than treating these stories as fixed in the past, Singletary imagines how Raven might encounter the modern world. In these new narratives, Raven confronts environmental change, technology, politics, residential school history, shifting relationships between humans and animals, and the strange contradictions of contemporary life. The stories move easily between humor and seriousness, pairing subjects such as Yeti coolers and killer whales with larger questions about cultural memory, responsibility, knowledge, and survival.
Singletary also shares insight into The Good, the Bad and the Raven, his collaborative project with author Garth Stein, and the process of translating new Raven stories into sculptural glass. Throughout the lecture, he demonstrates how traditional storytelling can remain dynamic and responsive, carrying ancestral knowledge forward while speaking directly to the world we live in today.
Watch the full artist lecture to hear Singletary discuss his creative evolution, collaborations, current projects, and the stories behind this newest chapter of his work.
View The Good, the Bad and the Raven catalog here.
