Tlingit glass at Traver

Photos courtesy of traver gallery

ORCA. “Killer Whale Pendant Form” is blown, sculpted and sand carved glass by Preston Singletary. Singletary’s show runs through Dec. 7.

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the William Traver Gallery opening the doors of its Tacoma location on Thea Foss Waterway, hard against the Museum of Glass (MOG). Since November 2003 the Tacoma branch of the Traver Gallery has featured the work of masters of studio glass from the Pacific Northwest as well as from the international scene. Alumni of Pilchuck Glass School as well as MOG hot shop artists are a regular staple of Traver’s offerings.

Currently Traver Gallery is hosting a pair of solo exhibits of two artists using the medium of glass in very different ways.

Preston Singletary, a Seattle-based glass artist of international renown, draws upon his Tlingit heritage to cast traditional, Native designs in the new medium of glass. His show, “Ancients Emerged from the Fire,” is a tour de force of skillfully crafted objects of lush color and rich detail.

Tim Edwards, on the other hand, is an Australian artist who uses flattened, blown-glass vessels to produce abstract forms of muted color that have a Zen-like, meditative quality. His show is simply titled “New Glass.”

Preston Singletary: “Ancients Emerged from the Fire”

 Singletary cut his teeth in the studios of such stalwarts of the Northwest glass scene as Benjamin Moore and Dante Marioni. His career has taken him to the glass studios of Murano in Italy as well as the Kosta Boda glass factory in Sweden, where he met his wife.

After gaining mastery of the medium and learning European forms, Singletary turned to his Tlingit roots for inspiration and began to recreate Northwest Native art forms in glass.

“Native cultures are always moving forward and adapting to new materials,” he asserts. “Representing Tlingit designs in glass felt like a logical next step to me – and glass gives the work a permanence that wood can’t duplicate.”

In much of his past work, Singletary has replicated Native forms in glass: rattles, masks, boxes, hats and baskets. With “Ancients Emerged,” however, Singletary presents works of what he calls his “modernist” period in which non-traditional forms (inspired by the likes of Calder, Miro and Noguchi) are covered in exquisite Northwest Native form-line designs.

In pieces like “Killer Whale Pendant Form” (pictured), “Distant Chief,” “Seal People,” and “Agent of Heavy Secrets,” Singletary presents forms with an upward thrust. “Agent of Heavy Secrets” is a decorative head with what looks to be an elongated, pointy fin sticking out the top. The outer layer of jet-black glass is carved away to reveal a concise Native design of rich under-color: yellow on the head and clear on the fin.

In addition to his “modernist” forms, Singletary provides a few examples of traditional forms as well. “Oystercatcher Rattle” is a wonderful contraption composed of multiple creatures (in the Northwest Native style). On the back of the elegant heron kneels a small, red figure with a black, mask-like face. Behind the figure is a wonderful, little red dog.

Singletary’s “Eagle Box” is another example of traditional form and design remade in glass. In this case the glass is a deep, brooding blood red decorated with clear ovals.

Singletary’s unique roots and skills allow him to function as a synthesizer of European glass blowing traditions and Northwest Native art. “I look at some of my current work as a turning of the tables on the modernists by taking inspiration from the movement while trying to create something new for indigenous art,” said Singletary.

Tim Edwards: “New Glass”

Originally trained in ceramics, Australian glass artist Edwards has devoted himself to glass since 1991. Edwards produces work that is quite different from that of Singletary. Where Singletary uses rich, blushing colors, Edwards delves into muted, murky, earthy tones. Edwards’ forms are more organic and abstract than the precise geometry of Northwest Native design that is Singletary’s stock in trade.

Edwards generally presents a pair of vessels (blown and flattened) that stand together as a single work of art. Titles like “Channel,” “Diffuse,” “Converge,” and “Closing In” speak a Zen language of space and void. These are quiet, moody works with surfaces that resemble melting ice or layers of flaky rust.

“Converge #19” is a flattened vessel done in a thick yellow-green; like the water of a weird little pond. “Closing In #4” is a pair of flattened forms standing side by side. The dark, root beer brown glass that coats the surfaces is an abstract design that flows from one vessel and is continued on the next.

Edwards states that his work is meant to evoke the feeling that one gets in the discovery of “something simple and beautiful in something cluttered and complex.”

“I want to pare it all down,” he says, “and concentrate on that feeling.”

The Traver crew has done a brilliant job with the gallery lighting. Many of the works are back-lit in such a way that the subtleties of the glass are brought out.

The two exhibits currently showing will be on view through Dec. 7. Traver Gallery is located at 1821 E. Dock St #100. For further information visit http://www.travergallery.com or call (253) 383-3685.

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