Bio

Preston Singletary grew up in Seattle, WA, learning about his Tlingit ancestry from his great-grandparents. After working as an assistant in Dante Marioni’s glass studio, Singletary began creating his own artwork, inspired by both his Tlingit heritage and the Studio Glass Movement. Visually similar to Native woodcarving, Singletary relays Tlinglit visual symbols and narratives in his glass creations. Singletary juxtaposes past traditions and present practices of art and glass, utilizing a combination of techniques, such as glassblowing, sandcarving and inlaying. Singletary also learned the methods of Venetian glass while working with Lino Tagliapietra and Pino Signoretto.

Singletary’s works are housed in museum collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Seattle Art Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY, the Mint Museum of Art and Design in Charlotte, NC, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ, and the Handelsbanken in Stockholm, Sweden.  In 2010, Singletary was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the University of Puget Sound.