A Wolf Hat in the Museum of Glass, Washington

Card no 409 – Carol & Rob

Wolf Hat – blown and sand-carved glass

Country Card Sent From: USA

Place Card Sender Lives: Kirkland, Seattle

Date Received: 21^st February 2013

Distance Travelled:  4,605  miles

Time Taken: 6 days

Created by Preston Singletary (an American born 1963) this piece of blown and sand-carved glass, entitled Wolf Hat, is in the Museum of Glass.  The Museum is dedicated to the medium of glass art located in Tacoma, Washington. It focuses on Contemporary and Pacific Northwest glass-art.  The museum, the brainchild of Dr. Philip M. Phibbs, was designed by acclaimed Canadian architect Arthur Erickson and opened in July 2002. It is located on the Thea Foss Waterway and near the University of Washington Tacoma in downtown. The museum is linked to the downtown area via Bridge of Glass. The bridge consists of thousands of glass-art masterpieces created by Dale Chihuly to make up the Venetian Wall, Seaform Pavilion and Crystal Towers.  The museum exhibits a conical hot shop building where you can watch glass blowing demonstrations. The room reaches 90 feet (27 m) and has two furnaces reaching temperatures of 2,400 °F (1,320 °C).

Preston Singletary grew up in the Seattle area listening to stories told by his great-grandparents, who were both full Tlingit. In high school he met and became friends with future glass artist Dante Marioni, son of glass artist Paul Marioni. Shortly after graduating high school, Singletary (who was actively pursuing a career as a musician at the time) was asked by Dante Marioni to work as a night watchman at what was then the Glass Eye, a Seattle glass-blowing studio. Singletary quickly moved from being night watchman to working the day shift to eventually joining one of the studio’s production teams. In 1984, Singletary took part in a workshop at Pilchuck Glass School for the first time. He has since been involved in Pilchuck as both a teacher and student. Singletary has blown glass around the world in countries such as Sweden, Italy, and Finland. In the late 1980s, Singletary began incorporating traditional Tlingit themes into his work and reaching out to other Northwest Coast Native American artists.