Glass artist Preston Singletary: Shattering expectations

At the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian, in Washington, D.C., an immersive play of light and shadows tells a tale of the beginning of time. "I've come, now, to think about the shadows as kind of a spirit within the piece," said artist Preston Singletary. "It's something that, you know, when the lighting is just right and all the voluminous qualities of the glass … it really had this mystical appeal to it."

The exhibition illustrates a Native American folk tale, entirely in glass.

"Raven and the Box of Daylight" is a traveling exhibition created by Singletary, a member of the Tlingit tribe of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. The show, which travels next to Norfolk, Va.'s Chrysler Museum of Art, tells the story of how the world gained daylight thanks to the insatiable curiosity of the white raven.