Last year Preston Singletary was a selected artist in the youngest of three age categories at the Seattle Art Dealer’s show “Century 21: Dealer’s Choice.” One year later he has a mid-career “survey” at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. This demonstrates the challenging nature of being an artist in a medium that takes at least ten years to master the basics of… at age 45, he is both “young” and mid career.
Melissa G. Post curates his mid career survey, “Echoes, Fire, and Shadows”, with an honest approach that places Singletary humbly in both the lineage of the glass masters and in the traditions of his Tlingit heritage. The show suggests that his artistic voice, and thus his success, was found by melding two strong and interesting traditions, studio glass and Native art.
The correlation between glass technique and form and Native formline symbols and designs is striking: Both require a type of initiation and approval to be used. In glass that means proving that you learned from the masters, Italian, European, and American. In Native art the use of certain symbols, such as the eagle and the bear, is inherited through your family. Great care was done in this exhibit to show Singletary’s effort to achieve ability and also permission to use both certain glass technique and also the Tlingit symbols.
The path of his career winds from the simple, unadorned “Prestonuzzi” vases to the mythically charged “Land Otter Man.” “Echoes, Fire, and Shadows” repeats throughout how indebted he is to his teachers. Singletary learned glassblowing from Lino Tagliapietra and Benjamin Moore. He partnered with Dante and was influenced by him. He made vases inspired by Martinuzzi. Here’s a scribble vase that looks like a Jackson Pollock, the wall text states. Martinuzzi, Tagliapietra, Marioni, Moore, Asa Sundland, Joe David, Tony Jojola…even books, Singletary appears indebted to them all. The curator’s goal of establishing his place in the history of studio glass diminishes his personal identity.* But to validate him as worthy artist for a giant show is not necessary and Singletary’s work shines greater than the context it is sown in and grows out of the cement of academic history.
In a previous exhibition that included Singletary, “Fusing Traditions,” it was written, “[Singletary is] working in a cultural realm where the visible is not always legible to the uninitiated, yet even the culturally initiated will find these figures in glass startlingly new.“
The soft light that glows from within the pieces “Threshold Amulet”, “Land Otter Man” and “Soul Catcher” is the personal identity of Preston Singletary. This is his major contribution to the arts. Without knowing more about Tlingit art, this is all I can say with certainty: His technical mastery of luminous color (matte black and frosty/radiant color) is what makes him unique among artists.
Native artists of the Pacific Coast expressed their personal identities through they way they executed their art onto the object at hand. (B. Holm, B. Reid) The sharp formlines and minimal but effective coloring of “Raven” and “Wolf Hat” are in that style of art, from what I’ve seen. Glass artists have an infinite variety of shapes to work with now, not limited to functional vessels, but limited in the making process due to first the temperature and second to the fragility of the medium. Singletary’s eminence as an artist can only increase from working within the limits of these two art forms, and it will be interesting to see the innovations that come from him in the future.
There is a section of the show dedicated to his collaborations with other First People artist.
His collaborations with Ed Archie NoiseCat on ‘Frog Mask’ (1999) and ‘Frog Woman Mask’ (2000) produced a mold that Singletary still uses. The mold is of a face, broad and open with wide lips and prominent cheekbones. “Chieftain’s Daughter,” made in 2006, has black synthetic hair and abalone earrings.
Viewing the masks, I felt privileged to be gazing upon an exquisitely cared for group of Non-European faces, not in a history museum where they document the past, but in a contemporary art museum. Exquisitely cared for, but maybe the protective, dim-light made the museum seem more interested in the preservation of these “artifacts” than with their current importance in the world of contemporary art. This may have not been the intent; it would certainly be too blatant a cultural misstep.
Singletary’s works are not artifacts, nor simply contemporary translations of traditional forms. What are assembled in this show are careful, meticulous, spiritual pieces of sculpture heavy with the weight of responsibility taken seriously. As an artist and public figure charged with uncovering the truth to the world and as a man with multiple family names to do justice to, Singletary has a lot riding on his artwork. It is this well-shouldered responsibility to each world that makes him an interesting artist to examine mid-career. Whether Singletary steps out of the bounds of glass and Native art, or whether he develops new technology to work within them, he will become a great artist. In viewing this show, it is hard to see how that won’t happen.
*The exhibit was undergoing repairs while I was there; the guitar, baskets, and Clan House were unavailable to see. There wasn’t any mention that half the exhibit was gone. I didn’t know until I read Rosemary Ponnekanti’s review. So this point may be mitigated by what I wasn't able to view.
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