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Thunderbird Egg (Collaboration with Joe David)

This work is a collaboration between Preston Singletary (Tlingit) and Joe David (Nuu-chah-nulth). Joe David‘s collaborative work with Preston Singletary has produced some of the most dynamic contemporary glass work in the region.

Joe David & Preston Singletary as Collaborators

“In the summer of 2000, I met a man named Joe David who became one of my most important mentors. He was from the Nuu-chah-nulth tribe from the west coast of Vancouver Island, but he was a master carver and was largely responsible for the resurgence of Northwest Coast art coming back into awareness and attention.

We were up at the Pilchuck School, and he wanted to create a ceremonial sweat lodge up on the hill, and offer to all of us who were up there. He explained it was a suffering and sacrifice ceremony and that he would show us this experience. For me, I was really rather apprehensive, but I participated with the four sweats, and after that he adopted me and he shared his name with me.

He gave me his name, which in the Tlingit language means “transforming killer whale.” This is really significant because on the Northwest Coast you could receive names throughout your lifetime which would denote a change or growth; or if you were to assume new responsibilities, such as being house leader, then you might receive an ancestral name.”

-Preston Singletary, excerpt from a 2015 interview with KCTS9.

Photography by Russell Johnson.