And we're on.
Good afternoon or good morning to wherever you may be zooming in from
I'm Rachel mess, rich programs, manager, legacy and editorial.
For the American craft council,
part of our editorial team and the coordinator behind the American
craft forum series.
I'm so pleased to welcome you all to this American craft forums
program.
In association with our quarterly publication,
American craft magazine.
I'm speaking to you today from my home in apple valley, Minnesota,
and representing the offices of the American craft council in
Minneapolis.
Which are both located on the traditional ancestral and contemporary
lands of the Dakota and Ojibwe people.
This place carries a complicated and layered history.
In the thousands of years,
the Dakota people have been in relationship and kinship with the land
here and in the several hundred years,
since European settlers colonized the land that the state of Minnesota
now occupies.
The United States land seizure was a project of destruction that
denied at the Dakota free and unhindered access to land that
fundamentally shapes their identity and lives.
We pay tribute to the Dakota and Ojibwe and invite you to consider the
land on which you live and the confluence of legacies that bring you
to stand where you are.
Particularly through critical reflection and conversation with your
own community.
Fostering conversation and community are at the heart of the,
of ACCS mission.
And American craft serves as one of the most vital.
Contributions and service to this mission.
And hopefully to the larger field of craft and American culture.
As we move through the year, our world continues to change.
And we continue to do what we can to meet this moment.
As always American craft remains rooted in the present,
shining a light on the diversity.
Resilience beauty and impact of American craft and its makers.
In 2022, we look at craft the lens of four themes.
Wonder fashion, forge and gather.
The editorial team has just wrapped up the fall issue,
which will be hitting mailboxes in just a week or two.
And has plans well underway for the winter 2023 issue inhabit.
We encourage pitches and submissions from our community and have more
information on the rest of the 2023 themes on our website.
Please check underwriters guidelines and submissions for more
information.
After this introduction,
I'm happy to put a couple of links in the chat for everybody.
To make this information easier to access.
But before I dive into the program in my introduction, I also wanted.
To thank the ACC staff, particularly our new executive director.
Andrea speck editor in chief,
Karen Olson are amazing marketing team and our it guru Jason
Samuels.
The American craft council is a national nonprofit member based
organization.
As such,
I would also like to give a big shout out to our donors and members
who make programs like this possible.
And a very special thank you to the Minnesota state arts board.
And Windgate charitable foundation for their generous support.
A few technical and logistical reminders,
please make sure that your camera is off and your audio is muted for
the program and conversation.
We encourage you to participate in the talk via the chat feature and
drop any comments or questions there.
Closed captioning is available during this program on the bottom of
your zoom screen, you'll see a closed caption symbol.
Clicking that button will turn this feature on and off.
This program will also be recorded and available for future viewing.
In the summer issue, we explored the idea of, of forge.
Not only the blacksmith forged, but also how we create.
Both work and relationships.
This issue celebrates the fire power and worth of craft and its
makers.
The direct connection between fire power and glass making.
Is pretty evident in the story.
Hip hop glassmaker by Corning museum of glass curator.
Susie silver on the work and practice of Brooklyn based artist.
Leo Takaki.
We're pleased to honor that story as well as the United nations
international year of glass by presenting a conversation between Leo
and another renowned glass artist.
And one of our 2022 ACC fellows.
Preston single Terry you'll see a profile of Preston and his work in
the upcoming fall issue,
which includes coverage of all of our 2022 awardees.
Both Leo and Preston used their work and this medium to deeply engage
with their respective cultures.
Preston's exploration of his clinked heritage has resulted in work
that is both personal and universally powerful to the larger
indigenous community.
Leo's work emulates not only the forms of graffiti and street art,
but also the tone, tempo and movement.
Of hip hop culture at its height in the eighties and nineties.
What is the significance of working in this notoriously tricky,
medium within the context of their respective practices?
And how do they see the exchange of influence between art and culture?
To help guide us and our speakers through this conversation.
I'd like to introduce our amazing moderator Elizabeth Esner.
Who will in turn, introduce our speakers more, more fully.
Elizabeth. I invite you to turn on your camera now.
Elizabeth Esner is the newly appointed Windgate foundation,
associate curator of craft at the museum of fine arts Houston.
Previously a New York based independent curator and writer.
She has organized exhibitions for institutions,
including the Aldrich contemporary art museum.
Urban glass, Arizona state university art museum, the clay studio.
And the Hunterton art museum in 2019 Elizabeth curated graffiti
ornament in Philadelphia.
Inviting artists, Leo Takaki and Robert.
Roberto Lugo to create site responsive work for the Woodlands,
a historic estate in Philadelphia.
An author and co-author of numerous exhibition catalogs.
Elizabeth writing has been featured in publications,
including shapes from out of nowhere.
Ceramics from this Robert A. Ellison junior collection for which she
also served as collection researcher.
A 2017 curatorial fellow with the center for craft in Asheville,
North Carolina.
Elizabeth received her a master's from the barred graduate center in
New York.
Thank you and welcome Elizabeth.
And I will now turn it over to you to.
Continue our conversation. Thanks so much for being here, everybody.
Thanks so much, Rachel that's. Thank you for such a nice, welcome,
and I am through so thrilled to, to be here.
I wanna thank the American craft council.
For hosting such important forms such as this one.
Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Jason. Behind the scenes,
who's running our tech.
I am Elizabeth Esner. I am the Wingate foundation,
associate curator of craft at the museum of fine arts Houston.
And I have to say, I am really thrilled.
To be here talking with two of the most.
Exciting artists working at the forefront of glass today.
Leo T Koski and Preston single Terry.
And I'm really looking forward to an expansive conversation.
About the ways that culture artistic practice and the world of glass.
Overlap in both Leo and Preston's very distinct bodies of work.
So for this program by way of introduction.
We are going to hear from each artist in brief about their work,
and then we'll open it up to a wide ranging conversation.
And during that time we really welcome.
Your questions out there as part of our conversation,
please feel free at any time to drop them into the chat.
It's really nice to hear what's on people's minds.
So without further ado, I'd like to introduce our first artist,
Leo Takaki.
I will quickly introduce him before he jumps into a short
presentation.
Leo speaks in the language of hip hop.
Deconstructing the iconography of graffiti.
And contemplating really the complexity of visual.
Language at large.
Takaki's practice engages with glass on many levels. Blown, engraved,
enamel, neon.
All of this is embraced in his practice.
He was the 2021 recipient of the very prestigious Ray cow commission,
which resulted in a thrilling new work, the 36 chamber.
Which is now on view at Corning museum of glass.
And if you can't make it to Corning,
As Rachel mentioned, you can read all about it in Susie silvers.
Brilliantly capturing the scope and the ambition of this exciting
project.
And your work over the last two decades.
Other recent exhibitions, as Rachel mentioned,
included graffiti and ornament,
where I have the great pleasure of working with Leo.
He has also shown work at Gustav's for const.
In Stockholm, Sweden. He had a solo show.
A really fabulous solo show at the Agnes verus art center at urban
glass in Brooklyn, New York.
Brooklyn New York is indeed where he makes, where he is based.
And makes his home and that's where we're speaking to him now.
So welcome.
Leo, I invite you to take it away from here.
Thank you, Elizabeth. Great to be here. Live from Brooklyn.
I'm just gonna jump right in.
So hip hop.
Hip hop that its purest form.
Is an artistic form.
But it is also a form of knowledge and cultural production.
It's a tradition that at this point has now been passed down.
Through a generation.
It's music.
And movement.
And graffiti.
It's wordsmithing.
And it is bombastic.
Hiphop methodology.
Is to combine.
Combat compile.
Sample appropriate.
Appreciate.
And remix.
Other components.
Forms and techniques.
Hip hop is layering.
It reconfigures.
Prefabricated snippets and samples.
To generate new and unique forms.
MCs DJs.
Great dancers and graffiti writers.
Are the purveyors.
And the elements.
Of the culture.
And those positions are born of resistance.
Assign a Saudi, the calligrapher said.
That Arabic, calligraphy and graffiti.
Are two daughters of the same parents.
They live separate independent lives, but are related in many ways.
Both are about the use of letters and their alphabets.
And their center of gravity is the beauty of writing.
Gestures are done with the whole body.
And are in sync with breathing.
Hip hop.
As I said is an expressive culture of resistance.
It's an opposition to among other things.
White supremacy.
And Western normative standards.
As hegemony.
At its most enlightened.
It contains ideals of self determination.
Political consciousness.
And self knowledge.
And most importantly, self actualization.
It disrupts.
And deconstructs.
Dominant theories of knowledge.
By offering alternative ways.
Of reckoning history.
As they turn project the image to the public. This is being done by.
And they ignore the fact that no, it is not.
Vicious hypocritical system.
Is this deconstruction.
That I am drawn to.
Graffiti is the written word.
Of the hip hop movement.
It's the element that is most visible.
And is a form.
Of street art.
Which connects people in an urban setting.
As an art form.
It's about beautifying letters.
Through stylization.
And uses writing.
As a means.
Of reclaiming.
And liberating the power of text.
As well as reclaiming.
And reoccupying.
The spaces that we reside in.
The craft is about the use of Al.
Of alphabets.
Where a letter.
Is more than just a letter.
It is a gesture.
Or a form.
Filled with emotion.
Punctuated with stars.
And arrows for emphasis.
Breaking down.
Alphabets and numbers.
In order to reveal their deeper meaning.
As a path.
To knowledge of self.
To give meaning.
To a letter or number.
Is a way of instigating knowledge.
To draw the viewer.
And the experience or.
Into the world of the writer.
In the hip hop head.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Leo. That's really great and gives us so many.
Sort of points of reference for this conversation today.
I love the idea of instigating knowledge.
I think that's exactly what we hope to dig into.
Today and.
So I'm gonna go ahead and.
Invite our next artist.
Preston Singletary who will be speaking with us from Seattle
Washington, where he is based.
Preston has.
Few studio glassblowing traditions with Pacific Northwest native art.
Honoring his clinic culture.
The tribe centered in Southern Alaska.
Preston has harnessed his artistry in glass.
To tell the ancestral stories of his blanket culture.
And in doing so he has become one of the biggest names.
In glass today,
his work can be found in museum collections across the country.
And at the moment.
If you are fortunate enough, either to live near Washington.
DC or to visit.
There are many places there where you can see his work in person.
He has an immersive traveling.
Exhibition Raven in the box of daylight that can be seen at the
national museum of the American Indian.
Through January, 2023,
his work is also in the Renwick. This present moment,
crafting a better world, which is on view until April 20, 23.
And if you aren't able to make it to DC.
There is a beautiful catalog and I'm gonna try to hold it up.
So you can see. Oh,
Yeah, maybe not, but it is incredible.
And it is an amazing document of this exhibition.
And the story of creation of the clink.
Raven and the box of daylight. So with that Preston,
I'm gonna turn it over.
To you. Very good.
Thank you for having me.
This is a very fun program.
I came up with a little bit of, well,
this is kind of an excerpt from a much larger program.
Presentation cuz.
After 39 years of blast making.
I have to determine what to share, what not to share. .
Or how much can I share? How much do I have time to share?
So, yes, I grew up in Seattle.
And the glass community grew up around me.
This is my, the woman in the center here is my great grandmother,
Susie Johnson.
Bartlett Gubai who.
Who grew up in Sitka. I saw somebody in the chat, the qui.
That's where I hail from my great-grandmother's from the box house.
And.
Sitka Alaska, the cog Guan.
Wonton. So that was kind of exciting to see.
This is her.
Second husband. She was widowed in 1919.
She married this Filipino man.
Dio GU betta who.
Moved her to Seattle.
And from that point forward, we grew up in the Seattle area.
This is me and some of my traditional or Galia.
And as I mentioned, the cog wonton, this is our.
Our house group.
And I guess apparently we own that.
Street up in Sitka.
It's my wife. She's actually from Sweden.
It was.
Also.
Married or together for 29 years now. And we had these two kids.
They're all grown now.
But to, to kind of put in, you know,
the evolution of my creative expression was music, of course, in the,
this is the late.
Late nineties.
This group that I had, we were.
Playing original music, sort of a funk rock style.
But the.
May 18th, 1980 was what kind of birthed my.
My last career.
I like to say there was a factory in Seattle called the glass size
studios where.
I got a job. And as a production glass blower,
Through the introduction of Dante Maria. It was high school friend.
And in turn, I started to work with Benjamin Moore.
Here, we're working with Leno. Tell you PRA at the, the Chile studio.
So this was.
An amazing thing for me to learn really through practical experience.
Just a little bit about the origins of, you know,
Spirituality that, that I.
You know, this is what kind of piqued my curiosity.
So some context of where I draw my creativity from,
or my inspiration, Carlos Castana of course was.
You know, kind of debunked in the end,
as far as what his writings were,
but that contained a lot of really interesting.
Perspectives on navigating your dream time.
Which led me to think about, you know, okay.
So where's the origins of dream analysis, which came from young,
young.
And so it caused me to.
You know, read a few books about.
Young psychology, which, you know, eventually led me to.
Looking at art from other.
You know, I didn't go to school for art. So I decided to.
Look at book surrealism was a big influence on.
On how I started to develop my thoughts.
Ike though is another.
You know, activity that I was involved with. And I,
I found a correlation between that and glassblowing working with this
opposing force.
Which was really fascinating for me.
On a physical level and it's also very deep on the spiritual.
Level too. And it's sort of, you know,
rectifying your place in the world and the con resolving conflicts
and, and.
Through a defensive martial art.
But as I mentioned, the, the, the surrealists, when I started to.
I've started to look into art. That was interesting to me.
The surrealists had, you know,
a lot of psychoanalysis around their work and a lot of hidden
symbolism.
So, and there was a, an artist or a, a writer.
Named B Bernard Strickland, who, who wrote that?
It was ironic that the, it was the modernist that.
Forced us to look at differing levels of reality and,
and.
You know,
the artist that is Jackson P*****k and mark Rothko and Picasso.
Were looking at this.
Older.
Cultural art from around the world.
The age of exploration, but the.
And making work that was sometimes appropriated by, you know,
these artists.
The, from all these other cultures.
Also, you know, Joseph Campbell is another kind of component,
which is nothing that I've studied like in.
You know, great depth, but it's something that.
inspires me and I have it.
I kind of equate it with my own sort of.
Hero's journey, you know, finding.
You know, the call to adventure is a glassblower and finding mentors.
And,
and eventually connecting it to my cultural background in different
ways.
Joe David was a.
Is my mentor from the west coast of Vancouver island.
Opened my eyes to a lot of aspects of.
Native spirituality through sweat lodge.
And so for me, I like to equate it with genetic memory.
It's a way of, you know, placing myself in that.
Mindset of looking at these older.
Objects and finding, you know, the beauty and the kind of the.
The spirituality behind it, you know,
this shadow effect was discovered purely by accident.
And so it was something that really.
Kind of pushed me along and as my skills evolved, I was able to.
Come up with, you know, more.
Different sculptural kinds of approaches.
To the work and then playing with forms such as,
this is sort of like a Brancusi to me.
But I learned a minute with Northwest coast art.
And explore different ways of, of presenting the sculptural forms.
And, and that's what really kind of.
Keeps me going.
And, you know, working with these forms, you know,
either traditional representation or more of a.
Abstracted representation.
And that's so all of these.
Have references back to.
Stories or symbols or.
References to specific.
You know, figures such as Raven here.
And then playing with.
With abstractions. This is not a traditional object,
but I'm taking it into new.
Realms now at this point.
And playing with sort of surrealistic kind of, you know,
presentations.
And I have.
A lot of, a lot of work to.
To well,
a lot of inspiration to reflect back on and then also developing new.
Kinds of interpretations.
For all these forms.
So this is, you know, a broad range of objects over, you know, a 20.
Plus year period. Here's some of my references to modernism.
With, you know, these mobile forms.
And then.
Getting very specific though, working with mythology.
I met this man Wolf reporter. Who's also clink it from.
From yakka and he.
Helped me understand the symbolism behind this Raven in the box of
daylight story,
which is the one that is featured at the Smithsonian of the national
museum of the American Indian.
So what Raven was white in the beginning of time.
When the world was in darkness, and this is sort of.
Him, this Raven figure.
The white animals in native.
Culture are usually thought of as supernatural beings.
And so this is a whole.
Immersive exhibition that takes you through.
The story of how Raven.
Met this old man.
That in the beginning of time when the world was in darkness.
And.
Learned that this old man was hoarding.
The sun in the mood and the stars in his clan house.
It goes to the fisherman of the night.
And meets the old man and his daughter.
And so working with all of these different techniques,
I've been able to sort of.
Create a thread of objects that tell the entire story.
This is when the daughter goes to.
Drink water from the stream. And she finds Raven.
They test the purity of the water and they find Raven here as a speck
of dirt.
In this, in the water. So they cast it out.
He reformulates his plan.
Turns himself into a HeLOCK needle.
She swallows it and she becomes pregnant. So this is the,
the daughter who's pregnant and you can see Raven.
Trans transfer her into a human.
Child then she gives birth to, to this human child.
And that's how he gets into the clan house.
So there's a lot to tell about this story and the metaphors behind
this story, but we don't have a lot of time for that at this point.
This is the old man, you know, presiding over his treasures,
his objects.
And a few of these objects here.
You know, creating the.
You know, in the old days,
masks were used as stagecraft for storytelling.
So this is kind of an expansion of that concept.
Here are the boxes that contain the sun, the moon and the stars.
The stars.
And, you know, Raven.
Eventually transforms back into a bird and takes the
sun and he breaks daylight on the entire world and the people
scattered to different regions of the world into the water.
Jumping into the air, running off into the forest and they become.
The, the, the animals of that re that domain.
And so.
This is in one sense.
How the Klan system could have evolved.
Adopting these animal symbols to represent clans and families.
And so this is a.
Little bit of a variety of what you would see in the.
Final gallery.
Of the exhibition of Raven in the box of daylight.
There you go.
That's my presentation for now. It can get into the.
The discussion.
That's really great. Preston. Thank you so much.
I love being able to start out our conversation.
Really getting a sense.
Not just from your words, but yours and, and Leo's as well.
And I invite him to join our conversation.
Really get the visuals.
Where you wear these sort of ideas.
These cultural backgrounds.
And your own experience.
Is neat in your work.
And I want to open up by kinda digging.
Into your background. I think.
Teachers mentors where you come from.
Is so essential to understanding.
Where you are going and for us to understand where you are coming
from.
And so I thought that we could kind of start there and trace a little
bit more of your own lineage.
As artists I would love to hear who brought you into a relationship
with glass, right? This very, very specific medium.
That is also really requires a lifetime of skill to.
Master.
And also who brought you into a relationship with your culture and
your ancestry, and really.
How did those pathways both open up?
And come together. Who, who were your greatest teachers?
So I will open it up to.
To both of you.
Leo, maybe you wanna, you wanna jump in, put you on the spot.
Sure.
Glass was.
I mean unknown to me as a material. And so I went to college.
I went to undergraduate.
At Alfred university.
To study sculpture.
From a liberal arts.
Track.
And.
I.
I mean, I guess I walked into the hot shop and was.
I think somebody was making a Tumblr and I just.
I didn't know that that's how.
That object came into being mm-hmm .
Obviously there's, you know,
25 Years ago or 20 years ago, like we're,
we've got mechanized processes,
but I still didn't even know the basics of like a molten.
Silica inflated to create a rigid.
Form. And so I was just immediately.
Turned onto the material and then was able to enter a
neon class with Fred Sheda.
Who was a faculty member at the time. And.
I signed up for that class.
Because having had seen glass making, you know, just sort of.
A little bit, I was making parallels between that and.
Like my own.
Methodologies of hip hop experience.
Which is to say that it has.
Some elements.
Of immediacy to it.
The material only reacts with a certain amount of flame or a certain
type of flame or a certain.
Time component.
Of flame and I was kind of drawn to that.
That sort of immediacy, there's sort of like a one shot deal for.
Glass two, you don't really erase you. Don't paint over.
The better you get, the more you can hide what you've.
Messed up, but.
Yeah. I mean, it was at university.
Neon shop.
Fred Sheda.
Nice Preston.
Well, I, that kind of touched on it a little bit, but I, you know,
the first glass artist I ever met was Paul, Mary.
Through Dante. Dante was.
14. I was 15. He transferred.
Moved up from California to.
Seattle. And we went to the same high school. And so I,
I learned.
Or, you know, I just started looking at, at the time I was,
I was more like, oh, I'm gonna be a rockstar. You know, that's my,
the box, my chosen profession. But that didn't really pan out for me.
Well, I mean,
In a big way. So I use art to support my music habit, but.
I I, you know, so I started, you know, the,
the production studio was about three years, three to four years.
Then I started working with Benjamin Moore.
And his studio is just starting to.
To get, you know, his studio.
Was actually the, the, the old.
Location of the, the first or the second glass eye studios. So.
Anyways, Richard Royal here.
And Benjamin were a team.
And I learned so much from both of those guys.
You know, working for different artists here,
we're working for Dan Daley,
but it was amazing experience cuz we were working for different
artists nearly every week.
Dante would come through and make his work and we'd work for Richie
work for Dan da and.
Danny Perkins.
I mean, list just goes on and on. And we were doing custom lighting.
We had to blow glass on a very technical level. So that was my,
that was my education around glass. That was really.
How I, I learned through practical experience.
And as I mentioned, that was the 39 years ago.
And kind of crazy to say that, but.
I just turned 59 the other day. So.
I have to just share some of these images of you and, and Dante.
Yeah. Mario, these incredible.
Sort of capturing a very specific moment in both youth and in
time.
We worked with a lot with Leno, tele Pietro. We were very,
very fortunate to befriend him. Of course,
Dante's interest in Venetian techniques. You know, I kind of,
you know, followed him down that path until I shifted away to,
you know,
Connect with my cultural background,
which is obviously what I do today. So.
Maybe you could share a little bit.
More about,
about how you did end up sort of connecting these two kind of parts of
yourself and perhaps parts of your world.
Well, for me, it was like 1982 is when I started.
Working in the production factor.
I started going to pill check in 1984 for the first.
That was the first time I went there.
And then a few years later I was trying to figure out, well,
how can I, you know, how am I gonna make my own.
Mark, you know, with this material.
Of glass.
And so I decided to turn to my cultural background,
which I wasn't really raised.
Understanding how to interpret it, but I basically.
I don't know,
started tracing things out of books and just trying to put it on the
glass and learn sandblasting. And,
but then I realized that there's a much deeper level of understanding,
which was really required to do this. And so I, I read a lot of books.
I reached out to people.
Who could teach me?
Marvin Oliver was one of the first guys that I had.
Reached out to,
he was a professor at the university of Washington and he was working
lots of different materials. He's.
Working with a lot of Northwest coast designs, but he.
Ended up dabbling in glass.
And then I didn't meet him till like maybe 10 years after he'd started
doing that. And.
And then I, I brought my designs to him and he kind of shared with me.
He opened my eyes to other perspectives of glass.
And of course, meeting Joe David in the summer of 2000 was.
An opportunity to work with him at the pill, Chuck glass school,
as an artist and residence. And I was his assistant.
So I was responsible for helping him accomplish projects.
And so that was pretty.
And so we were became fast friends and he.
Like I said introduced me to the sweat lodge ceremony and.
And really what, you know, kind of challenged me on, on.
You know, on,
on a deep level to really kind of step up and, and.
And kind of, you know,
Get very.
Deep with the art and the design work.
Because, you know, if you can't do 2d, you can't do 3d.
So it's like it, it's just, it's a step by step process.
This was the, on the, the, the pill truck campus,
where we did sweat lodges up there for about.
Seven years.
Hmm. It's interesting to hear that in some ways,
glass actually led you to.
To explore your background to explore your ancestral heritage.
Leo for you. How did you kind of come.
Come to infuse hip hop.
With glass.
Well,
it always.
Sort of seemed like the natural thing to do. I.
I have to say, like getting my start in an eon shop. I think I, as I.
Saw how a straight.
Neon tube is bent.
Into a form.
I immediately thought of tags and graffiti handles.
Because of signage, you know, neon's signage.
Graffiti is signage.
And if you.
You start with a pattern again, you start with that 2d.
You draw a pattern out and then you, you bend it,
you bend it backwards, but you, you bend it.
And so.
It just was like a logical progression. I don't know. I,
I think that I got to art school and I.
Immediately was.
Infusing hip hop.
Into my foundation work.
Simply because.
I.
Didn't wanna do anything else?
As of young.
Person, you know of.
Certain type of thinking you,
even though you like sign up to go to school,
you still don't wanna like, do what they say. So you.
You know,
luckily I had something that I could latch onto to be able to be like,
all right, you want me to like, think about Brancusi? No,
I'm gonna do.
You know, flying seeds or something like that, it just was like,
sort of made a logical.
Jump like the antithesis to.
To art school.
In America was gonna be like,
Graffiti art in art school.
And graffiti came first for you then.
Yeah. I mean, I'm like as every.
Almost every single person in the year,
85 to 1999.
Mm-hmm I wrote graffiti mm-hmm .
And.
So I had that.
Like stylistic approach to things.
Putting your name out on the walls. Like you just sort of like.
Standing out doing something different,
but doing things in the name of, in the name of the culture was.
How I was always gonna approach.
Everything really. And it was.
Creating.
With materials that sort of.
Synthesized all that.
It's interesting.
That as I was, you know, as we've sort of alluded to already,
and as I was sort of spending time with your practices,
Both of you, music has such an important part,
whether kind of in the background or really very much in the
foreground for you, Leo.
It's this really important part of how.
Of sources of inspiration, but I also can't help.
But think about these sort of cross-disciplinary.
And even sort of crossmodal dialogues glass is such an embodied
craft. Leo, as you already kind of alluded to.
Your body has to know it as much as your mind knows it.
And I can't help, but think.
Music requires that same thing, right? You can't,
once you start a song, you can't stop.
It's the same sort of thing.
And I wondered if each of you could kind of dig in a little bit on.
On, if you see those similarities.
How you think about music within your practice?
I mean for me, I know it's like it's, multi-tiered it's the,
the music is the, is the entry point.
For me into the culture.
Or at least one of the most immediate ones.
I like my mother got me my first hip hop record, but.
I was like seven years old or something. And it was, it was already.
It, the album was already called hip hop greats. It was already like,
you know, we had already pushed through some of the early parts of it.
I was eight,
like break dancing in my room with my little brother and you know, it.
It was,
we grew up with it and it was just something that like was of the time
that.
My mother who was interested in music,
my family's interested in music, all kinds of music.
That are in, you know,
That have sort of social bearing and.
So she kind of put me onto that.
And.
As a youth, you like latch onto music in a lot of ways.
Comfort inspiration.
Aspiration.
And then I also like through college was a DJ and played.
Parties weekly and, you know, sort of.
Spread the music out as well to try and.
You know, try and clue people into what I was interested in. You know,
this is.
2000. So hip hop is already like,
Of the zeitgeist,
but it has become so broad at this point that I wanted to clue people.
Into certain aspects, certain types of music that I wanted to plus.
There's a technical craft aspect to two turntables and a mixer.
It's it. It's hand work.
It's timing. It's improvisation.
And so now I'm also learning something else too, with my hands.
Thinking making with my hands.
Controlling the crowd, which is.
An amazing feeling.
It's not really control because you're sort of in it with them.
Like it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a compromise.
It's not really control. There's a compromise there.
They agree to listen.
And you agree to.
You know, make them move.
And so it's and it's, and it's even still there for me today. I don't.
Play turntables. I never really wrapped. I just was like,
Shy of a microphone and.
I'm better in hindsight, but.
Like I freestyle with my daughter. So that's how we like,
that's how we learn. Now.
We do a lot of wrapping together in the car and.
On the train stuff. So it's always like a component.
And it's, I think it's like the.
Sort of easiest one to latch onto, like,
I remember every single lyric of every.
CD of every app, which is.
Weird. And a lot of people do that. That's a, that's not like a.
Specific skill that's a lot of people latch on.
Can remember cadence can remember.
Vocals and.
So I think that it's, it's still a big part of how I.
You know, get the wheels turning. Hmm.
I love that you're passing it on to your daughter too.
That's now you are sort of generational.
Story Preston.
Yeah. What about you?
Hopefully, I really apologize.
There's some kind of Jack hammering going on. That's one of my studio.
Hopefully it's not too disrupting, but anyway, so.
Yeah. I mean, I started playing music as a kid.
I was attracted to the piano. I was attracted to.
Scott Joplin music, you know, ragtime music.
That's this fascination with, and I got into this whole.
Idea of this, you know, syncopated.
Con con you know, very complex music.
Chord structures and everything. And I, and I,
and I figured out how to.
Do a couple of flashy riffs, but.
I didn't, I didn't really learn music on a level that, you know,
you could sit down and read cheat music. So.
I'm very limited. I, so I, I, I play by ear.
I'm really have a pretty good year, so I pick stuff up.
You know, through middle school, high school.
I was, I was, I went to the central district where there's the,
you know, sort of the mixed community and the lunchtime.
They played a lot of.
Soul fun souls music. And that's where I got, you know, inspired by,
you know, Ohio players IWiN and fire.
And that's the music that just kind of spoke to me cuz I, you know,
I was exposed to it at a young age.
You know, then eventually I switched to guitar.
I switched to bass and, and then I found.
I got became really fascinated with like,
Multicultural music and blending of, of different music.
Around 1980. I discovered the talking heads and I, and I, I,
they had two albums which were very.
Funk oriented. And you know, I have to say funk soul is where.
That's where it starts and stops with me. You know, I, I,
I love the complexity of the music. I love the.
The, you know, you know,
parliament Funkadelic is like, you know, for me,
With be all and end all of music. You know,
you can start and stop there as far as I'm concerned.
The, but the.
You know, because of embodies the best of like, you know,
Soul jazz rock.
You know, gospel.
And, and.
And yeah, all of, all of this music comes together through that style,
that genre.
And so.
And, you know, I think that there's a lot to be learned.
You know, between.
Our cultures like musically, like, I, I love.
Having the, that soul.
And fun music coming through.
Like this native American lens.
So I I've always pushed myself to kind of.
Try to achieve that because that's the music that I love so much. And.
And I feel like that the, the complexity of the music, like the,
the syncopation.
Patient very specifically informs.
It can inform.
Native cultural music.
And I've even studied, you know,
a lot of the jazz guys that I play with,
they say that they are convinced that powwow drumming came up
with the.
Was was what influenced.
Swing, you know, like, like a Bebo.
Bop swing style, you know, cuz it's like.
You know, and it's like,
That that, that rhythm.
Was picked up by some, you know, some of the jazz music,
there's a lot of, you know, study around.
Interaction of African cultures.
And, and native Americans.
And so I love that, that thinking about that, and even, you know,
Chuck D was like, he said something to the effect, like, well,
You know, at least in, you know,
native Americans know how they were screwed over by, you know,
the dominant.
Society, you know, African American are still trying to figure it out.
I actually don't agree with that because I think that.
Native American cultures.
They know what happened to them,
but they're kind of in denial about it.
They're not angry enough to sort of step up and, and make.
A bold statement. They rather, you know,
I was talking about this when I was at the national museum of the
American Indian in DC. This.
Past winter, you know, and they said,
That specifically the natives.
Elders in the communities. They didn't want to.
Dwell on the trauma.
Okay. And you go over to the African American museum.
Of history and, and culture and history.
And it's really laid bare, like, okay, this is how it started.
These are the people that were involved with slave trade.
These are the.
This, you know, it's like a global thing. It's not just the Americas,
you know, it's, it's, it's a global effort that, that started that.
And so I think that the national museum of American Indian missed a
big.
Piece of that, where they didn't, they didn't.
They didn't express it well enough or strongly enough now they're
retroactively going back and talking about broken treaties and stuff
like that, but it's, it's like,
So I, I love how the, the, the.
These cultures can inform each other.
And inspire.
That's actually a perfect, you know, sort of.
Segue to, to my next sort of question, which really is.
About about culture, right?
And about history and how engaging with your own.
Culture means that you carry not just yourself and your own lived
experiences, but you carry with it. Right? The history of.
Of a people, you carry the stories, you carry the music.
And so I wanted each of you to sort of.
Think through with me, how you navigate this as an artist, right.
Where are the bridges between your own personal expression and your.
If you think of them, your responsibilities.
Of representation. How,
how do you kind of navigate this in your own practice and maybe has it
changed over time?
Can you put it another way?
Sure.
How has.
If you're representing hip hop culture.
Right.
And you sort of carry that history with you as you speak in that,
right? You, you refer to that history.
And so in doing so.
How true do you feel you need to be to that history?
How much do you feel you can innovate on it? How,
how responsible do you feel to represent hip hop?
I mean, in my case, I, I think that.
Like I am using hip hop as a springboard.
But also as a, as like a.
Like as something I'm working against as well.
I think that like the nature of hip hop is to.
Change what came.
What be at it, you know, it's supposed to.
We're supposed to question always like even, you know,
Even what even what's hip hop is.
Supposed to be questioned and,
and we're supposed to change the culture and change the mediums.
So like Karas one says that that hip hop is the culture, but rap.
Is what it produces. So, so if hip hop is the culture and,
and this glass is what it's producing.
That I need to be.
Sort of dictating what the culture is rather than regurgitating.
What the culture was. So I'm, I.
Have like.
A duty to.
To use the methodology to.
Deconstruct the.
The culture in and of itself.
So I'm doing this like weird infinity loop where I'm like, oh,
hip hop's the best.
And we have to change it, but it's so great,
but I need to do something new and different.
And then I just like that sort of helps perpetuate.
And I, it, it absolves me a little bit of that.
That.
It's not necessarily accountability, but it,
it absolves me of that sort of like.
You know, monolithic representation.
Yeah, and allows me to create a little bit more.
Of a truer form when I am working.
You know, I'm gonna.
I'm gonna.
Push that a little bit further. I'm gonna share an image.
Let's see, can I share an image?
And maybe I can. Let's see. Oh, there we go.
I'm gonna share this image of yours.
Cuz it's not just hiphop that you're really referring to.
It's not just hiphop that you're thinking about and maybe.
This is a good place to kind of dig.
Into the multiple sources, the layered sources of your inspiration.
Sure.
.
You wanna tell us what we're looking at? Well,
what we're looking at here on the left is a, is a CD, a compact disc.
For those of us who don't want familiar with that form of media.
And it contains.
Information in this case, it's music.
Specifically.
The album, the pick sickle in shovel.
By the grave diggers.
98, 19 98. I believe.
And so I got this CD 1998,
been bumping it ever since it's got some really.
Interesting.
Music on it. Just music. Great MC work.
And.
On the right is a, a.
Belief Iranian.
Ceramics plate.
From the 12th century.
Ad.
I could be wrong. It could be the eighth century.
It's antiquity and it is.
It has a chronic verse on it as.
Sort of circling it and the CD on the left.
Is a, is basically a mirror image of that.
And I didn't know that when I got to CD, I.
Assumed it was some sort of room.
Of some sort a language.
A different script.
So, this is like, it's interesting. This image, even in itself,
like if you put.
A line, you know, put an X in the middle of it.
There's that infinity loop. So.
The CD first, then later art history learning about.
Iranian and, and.
Islamic art,
going back to the music to find that a lot of the core tenants
principles, ideas, concepts.
Come from Islam.
And more so.
The nation of, of gods and earth. So the 5% nation,
which is an American.
Social movement.
That is an offshoot from the American nation of Islam.
Which has its own.
Sort of.
Dictated.
Coursework.
And I mean, we can go more on that later, but, but yeah, so the,
so like,
This is like an embodiment of how I, how I think about work. And so I,
I, I also have been bringing in Islamic art and architecture.
As influences into my own work. I'm not a practicing Muslim.
And I don't think that that's important for me to utilize.
Any of that imagery.
or the concepts involved within that?
Like I said, calligraphy is the sister to graffiti.
It's an ancient technical.
Skill it's used.
To speak the word of God.
And beautify language.
And other are Islamic art and architecture.
Involves the use of geometry, which is, which is perfection.
Of the universe.
So taking those concepts.
Flowing into my work and.
Layering them sampling them and reappropriating them.
To like, add that kind of divinity.
Into into these objects.
Creating these hip hop artifacts.
Of the future for the future. I.
Yeah. The things,
the things that come out of it are these interesting, like.
Studies of.
The combination of all these, all this research.
So it's great. And Preston, that kind of,
this idea of kind of leading back to these really big ideas universe.
Stories that.
Then we inform.
Our own experiences with Preston.
Maybe you can kind of speak to your own trajectory.
With culture. Yeah.
Yeah. The, so there was a there, as I mentioned, you know,
when I started, I was just like, oh,
I'm just gonna trace these elements and put them on. And I realized,
oh no, no, we have to go much deeper getting into.
You know, the, the history.
Of the culture.
Really and, you know, because.
Northwest coast, you know, are Alaskan art, clinking art.
Has a lot of issues of, of.
Intellectual property.
So a lot of these symbols, they refer back to families,
specific families that are still in existence today. You know,
the Klans that, that.
That keep evolving and.
So, not every.
Design. I mean, I have to learn how to create my own designs,
you know, rather than appropriate them mean there's.
Rules and regulations. And I like to use the idea of calligraphy.
I like to, I, I think of it as drawing those elements.
Become a personal style.
Within the culture with within.
The, the cultural style, a personal style within the cultural style.
And then you get into the tribal perspective and, and between tribes,
you know, there's several tribes along the coast of Alaska, the Hidea,
the Simian and all the, the new, the Newtown north that is.
The, it all looks very similar, but it's culturally specific.
So, so I had to kind of figure out.
Like how to.
Interpret my own culture.
And I wanted it to be on a deep level. I wanted it to be.
As authentic as I could make it in this new material of glass. And so.
When I started to dabble in it,
part of that Eureka moment is when I did my first show and I said,
okay, I'm gonna develop a body of work.
I'm gonna put it out there in a gallery.
People responded to it immediately. They were,
they wrote like I sold that.
First batch of work. Like I sold it out.
So only a show that I've ever sold out by the way.
But anyways, people.
Realize there's something more, more.
More personal going on there.
And so I realized that I had to dig a lot deeper.
Into educating myself around the cultural arts. And so.
With that navigating the issues of intellectual property and what
designs you can use and you don't copy designs. You make your own.
Original designs of that Raven of that Eagle.
Of that killer whale, you know, it's like you draw.
Up a new every time. And once you understand these elements,
it's sort of like calligraphy has like these.
Tariffs and you know, little details.
But over time, a personal style can emerge.
So, I mean, it took all the way back to just this past.
Spring.
In June. And I brought a totem pole back to CIT gal, Alaska.
And I told my clan, the, the box house, as I said, look, I,
the Coton, I said, I'd like to.
You know, if you'd be amenable, I'd like to have a small dedication,
you know, let's do, you know, just something humble and some,
you know, I'm returning the spirit of my great-grandmother to Sitka,
where she came from. That's what this totem pole represented.
And so they said, okay, you know, we got you. We're, you know, we'll,
we'll meet and we'll talk and we'll, you know,
You're gonna have to dance.
For us, you know, you're gonna have to dance.
And you're gonna have to, and they taught me this song,
this spirit song that you know,
was evoking the moment where we're gonna rename this tone pole and
give it a click at name.
And so what I did, I went up there and, and I, and I, it got,
it became.
Like a, a much bigger thing.
Than I anticipated. And yet, on the other hand, it was.
It, it was an opportunity to reintroduce me and my entire family,
like my aunties, my mom, and my two aunties were there.
A lot of my cousins were there.
And we were all there to, to, to witness.
This, this event. And so.
It was incredible. It was kind of my bigger overture was to sort of,
you know, connect with that community.
You know, sort of reintroduce myself cuz I don't go there very often.
And I just said like, I wanted to be able to.
To meet people. And it was like, I'm an artist.
I'm sure that they would have some use for me as an artist making
traditional.
Objects.
And of course, you know, doing the ceremony.
This is with Joe David here.
We're, you know, we're a.
Really into this.
Learning about the, you know, learning the, the songs.
Cuz in the old days, the songs, the dances.
The stories, the artwork.
Were all one thing. It was, it was a symbiosis there.
And.
So in any case, that's, that's how it, how I.
Summit up. So.
Reconnecting.
And it was not the first time I've done this. I mean,
I made it pretty significant piece for a cultural arts center in Juno.
And that's still the heart of the Clingett territory. And so.
And I feel like.
And so there, this is an interesting point though. Okay.
So because it, it is.
In the old days, the artwork that I would make was,
was for the community.
For the clinking community and solely for the clinked community.
Now as a practicing working artist.
We're forced to go outside of the communities to sell our work.
Outside in galleries. And so therefore.
You know, I'm, that's what I'm doing.
And what I get the opportunity to do something for the community.
That, that means that.
How, you know, being a commercial artist.
I, I have this responsibility to.
To understand the stories to understand.
The the forms and to.
And to do it to the best of my ability.
And then when the community comes to ask me to do something
specific, I've prepared my entire life.
You can't be a.
You've to be a practicing working artist.
It gives you the ability to.
Practice your artwork.
So when the call to from the community comes that I'm prepared and
I've prepared my whole life to do something for them.
That's great.
I am.
We're we're starting to close in on time. And so I wanted to just.
Share a question.
From our chat. This is from Tammy.
And I think it's a perfect place for us to kind of conclude cuz it's
about glass, of course, which is what we're here talking about.
I wonder what does glass bring to the table in the creative process?
That's unique or attracts them compared to other mediums.
So why glass.
Have you ever seen glass blowing? it's a great answer.
It's really true. Yeah.
For me, it's different. It's got this, like,
It's because, and I, and I think it's,
I'm able to articulate it after having worked with it. And I,
and I see it and I saw it Preston in your work.
I think 2003, I was at in Seattle for a glass.
Arts society conference.
And at the Seattle museum.
The bowl hat form.
Simple clear with blue.
Sandblasted. It was.
Pretty crucial moment in my decision making about work as well.
Hadn't I sort of was.
Bored with Venetian work, simply because everybody wanted to do it.
I think it's a phenomenal.
Style.
But everybody does it.
Already and some people do it really well. So.
When I saw that, that I think maybe it was a basket, but anyways,
the idea of like,
Anything.
On glass through.
The technical.
Skills that you learn about it or what draws me to it?
It is malleable. It bends. It's stretches it.
Cracks and breaks and it sort of runs a gamut of.
Of of material.
Abilities.
And it has a very.
Interesting craft history.
In this country.
Internationally worldwide.
And so the idea that.
You could take this material.
Apply.
I your thoughts, ideas visually to it.
And then like,
And to me, it's like, it's so graffiti,
like you take a rigid letter and you bend it,
twist it and make it blue. It's like it.
Obviously that's glass. That's not bronze.
That's not stone.
If those materials are rigid.
And glass has, this has the fluidity to it.
And.
You can't even touch it. It's just like,
you just wanna like get in it, but you, we can't.
That's great now.
I, I.
You know, I share that same perspective about, you know,
Venetian.
Style, but it was more about technique for me. It's like,
once you learn how to handle the material, once you.
Watch someone like Leno handle the material.
That becomes like the foundation of how to do something, you know,
making larger pieces or whatever. And then I took, you know,
Workshop from Pinos, Toto, and he was this great sculptor, you know,
in glass.
But, you know, so let's let's so we use that as a foundation to.
Expand on that technique.
Of because, you know, you know, we all know that the Venetian.
Glass culture was secretive and they were not,
it wasn't respected to share.
The that.
Their technique throughout the world and Leno.
Realized that,
that the Venetian glass culture was in decline because there was no
incentive, you know, it was all controlled by the.
The unions and the factories who wanted to make all the money from it.
So to be a master glass blower,
Yeah, there was no the pay rate wasn't that much higher than the first
assistant. So that's what he always talked about.
Let's not forget too, that, you know, the American,
the studio glass movement is just.
What 55 years old. Right. So prior to that,
There was not the access that we all have.
To glass as we do today.
So, you know, pill, truck, glass will all the.
Institutions that are supporting glass and so many different places in
the country now.
Are, you know, that's how it's evolved.
And now the fact is that, you know,
native Americans never had access to.
Glass. They never, you know, we average artists.
Or people just didn't have access to it.
And now we see that we can.
Bring I say that glass brings another dimension to this cultural art
to, and, and it's also has a sense of permanence it's fragile. Yes.
But it's also.
It could potentially last for thousands of years,
you got Egyptian glass that, you know, we can look back at.
So, and I also want to say,
I give a point to, you know, like the creativity around it, because.
Now we're not only just using glass, but we're creating more.
I think the most to me, the most interesting glass.
Has a purpose. It has a meaning.
It conveys knowledge, you know, like, you know,
Exactly what we're talking about here today. It.
Conveys, you know,
there's a it's figurative and it's narrative and it has.
This ability to, you know,
grab attention when it's done on a really high level.
Like we're able to do it now, then, then it it's completely valid,
I believe. And.
And it, and it adds to that sense of, of.
Of permanence and it's such a rarefied material and it's so expensive
to, to use glass.
I mean it, you know, that if you.
Can find your navigate your way to become.
Handle it on a much higher level.
And make very unique things with it, then that's really.
That's really the, the breakthrough moment.
I mean, I realized that I wasn't gonna make a, be able to make a,
a name for myself, making bases and bowls, you know?
I, you know, my early work was really reflective of, you know,
the great.
Teachers that I had, like Dante and Benjamin Moore was very.
Controlled very design ish. You know, maybe.
Had kind of referencing.
History. But then I said, look, I have, I gotta, I gotta dig deeper.
And that's what I ended up doing. And so that's.
For me has been the most fulfilling thing.
You know, it's opened up so many doors to be.
To kind of.
Pioneer material in such a way for my.
My tribal community and for the art community,
for the glass community.
This has been, I think once you become a keeper of cultural knowledge,
it becomes a responsibility. And so that's how I conduct myself today.
I conduct it with this, you know, a degree of like, okay,
this is an opportunity. I have a, a captive audience.
People are looking at what I'm doing. So therefore.
I really want to show them something special. I want, I want it to be.
To them, for them to like, oh,
My gosh. Okay. So this is all about your tribal community.
This is about a story that goes back, you know,
The clink. I like to say since time immemorial, you know,
Goes all the way back 10,000 years, maybe, you know, is what the,
the idea around the Raven story is.
So in a way it gives it a new life. It gives it a new audience.
It gives it.
You know, it can educate.
It can heal the work that we do.
And the symbols that we use can have, you know,
I mean,
it gives people a new perspective and it has a healing quality around
it.
Because it's done with the sense of purpose.
It's just not an object that's placed right there.
Which I don't have any problem with. I love beautifully made objects.
And I'm just saying that I think, you know, both of our,
our perspectives are.
You know, bringing something new to the world. And I think that's why.
You know, it's exciting to learn more about your work, Leo.
Appreciate that. Yeah.
Well, thank you. Both.
This has been such a generative conversation and I'm so grateful to
both of you for bringing.
Bringing all the parts of yourself to this conversation today.
And I'll invite Rachel, Rachel, back up.
To do some final.
Final goodbyes. Yes. Yeah. I just wanted to.
Echo what Elizabeth just said. Thank you so much to all of you for,
for joining us for this conversation for your time.
Thank you to our attendees.
Who who populated the chat with such great questions and great
comments. And.
And just thanks to all of you for joining us. It was a true pleasure.
Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Elizabeth.