Wolf Crest Hat

Turn this bowl upside down, and it takes the form of a Northwest Coast Native American hat. Shaped like truncated cones, the hats were woven from spruce roots and painted with crest designs.

Singletary pays homage to this tradition by sculpting the hat in glass. He contrasts transparent and opaque areas to create a symmetrical surface design in the historic style.

A member of the Tlingit tribe, Singletary has dedicated his career to communicating his culture's stories and knowledge to a broader audience through glass sculptures. Each Tlingit family or clan has a distinctive crest representing in animal form the supernatural being that confers specific privileges upon the family group.

To make "Wolf Crest Hat", a gob of hot glass (called a gather) with the consistency of taffy was taken from a furnace placed on the end of a blowpipe, and inflated to create a vessel. This was cut open with shears and then further shaped with tools while being constantly rotated to make its shape geometrically perfect.

Singletary honed his skills through apprenticeships with world-renowned glassblowers at the Pilchuck Glass School near his native Seattle and in Finland and Sweden. Today, he heads his own team of glassworkers that includes blowers and sandblasters.