Photo courtesy of Russell Johnson The exhibition features a dynamic combination of artwork, storytelling, and encounter, where the Tlingit story unfolds during the visitor’s experience.

His blown and carved glass sculptures elegantly meld the traditional form-line design and iconography with modern forms, colors, and gestures; calling attention to the cultural threads that connect the two distinct temporal realities they represent.

The exhibition beckons visitors into a space that is designed to have the ambiance of Southeast Alaska, the home of the Tlingit tribe. Over the smoke, Raven becomes a black bird, no longer able to shift forms, which is the sacrifice he makes for bringing the daylight into the world.The last room of the exhibition represents the world drenched in daylight, the world as we know it now. The exhibit closes Labor Day, Monday Sept Trees were harvested to make totem poles to illustrate clan histories and make utilitarian objects such as bowls, spoons, boxes, tools for hunting, and canoes for transportation.

The Museum of Glass’s newest exhibition, which opens today and will remain in the museum through October 2019, is a unique blend of traditional story and contemporary multimedia. - Text courtesy of  Visitors will be immersed in Tlingit culture through a dynamic, multi-sensory environment. Despite this tradition, however, Singletary’s artistic interpretation of Tlingit culture in a museum space, where anyone “In my experience, a lot of elders are really encouraging of new things and ideas,” said Singletary. Artwork in the exhibition will be supported by the research of Walter Porter, a Tlingit mythologist and historian.

Raven and the Box of Daylight is currently on view at the Museum of Glass until September 2nd, 2019 and will then travel to the Wichita Art Museum with the exhibit opening in February 2020. Biography.

The exhibition is active, surprising, and dramatic, and engages the viewer through sight and sound. Preston Singletary (American Tlingit, born 1963)

A white raven sits in front of the first entrance, his caws heard loud overhead, mingled with the voices of the Tlingit storytellers.“In the beginning, before this was Tacoma, before the Puyallup were the Puyallup or the Tlingit the Tlingit, the world was in darkness and Raven was a white bird,” said This white bird leads visitors through the exhibition, which chronologically reveals the storyline of how Raven brought light to the world. “My skills evolved over several years, and I was able to make (the pieces) more and more complex, showing a real variety of different sculptural styles I played with over the year,” said Singletary. In stillness and solitude, they observed nature and how the animals behaved.

Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight is a gorgeous mosaic of glass representations of characters and items in the Tlingit story of the Raven, the trickster who brought the world from darkness to light.

"Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight"  takes visitors on an experiential journey with Raven, and the transformation of darkness into light. Porter’s research provides a unique perspective about Tlingit cultural stories. Recordings of Tlingit storytellers will introduce visitors to the art form of Tlingit oral tradition. Singletary’s art creates a theatrical atmosphere in which his striking glass pieces enhance the narrative of Raven and the Box of Daylight. It’s not a tradition in the sense that it’s used or worn or danced, but it’s another way of interpreting culture for the next generation.”Deeper within the clan house are the boxes of light — the stars, the moon, and the sun — that are the most prized possessions of the wealthy man who is now Raven’s grandfather.
“There are so many more.

See Preston Singletary's current exhbitiions at the Museum of Glass and the Traver Gallery. He was well-known for his comparative work regarding other culture’s mythologies to the Raven story, and his research will be used to draw connections to universal themes and perspectives. The trickster changes his shape several times until he is ingested by the daughter in the form of a hemlock needle in her drinking water, at which point he shape shifts once again to be a human baby growing in her womb.

2009-2012 Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA – Preston Singletary: Echoes, Fire, and Shadows.

Visit the Wichita Art Museum for the opening of "Raven and the Box of Daylight", opening February 2020. Fall 2020 and the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA. Fall 2021. Always interested in connecting the traditions of storytelling in Northwest Coast Native society with contemporary culture and politics, Singletary brings fresh and newly imagined imagery to this most recent body of work. This week's episode of We Art Tacoma is with Native American glass artist Preston Singletary, who has an exhibit called Raven and the Box of Daylight at the Museum of Glass. These oral performances tell the story of Raven and the light and include original music and sound effects to further enhance the visitor experience. These are the images of the illuminated forest”. Catch the "Raven and the Box of Daylight Exhibit" Before it Leaves the Museum of Glass.