Talking Out Your Glass Podcast

At 19, Preston Singletary was the night watchman at Rob Adamson’s Glass Eye studio in Seattle. Three months later he started blowing glass, working with his childhood friend Dante Marioni. Both artists credit a visit from Italian Maestro Lino Tagliapietra as well as Pilchuck classes with inspiring their subsequent successful careers in glass.   In the 1980s, Singletary began incorporating Tlingit designs into his work. By doing so he found not only a new artistic direction but a captive audience for glass that reflected the stories and symbols of his Native Southeast Alaskan tribe. Singletary transformed the notion that Native artists work best with traditional materials. The evolution of his glass working skills and designs along with his subsequent commercial success has positioned Singletary as a primary influence on contemporary indigenous art.   Wrote Matthew Kangas for Visual Art Source: “Making indigenous art releases the ego tied up with individual artistic expression in favor of a wider, collective s