An Evening with Preston Singletary & Spike Mafford

This Earth Day, join Forterra for our Spring Gathering – an evening that brings together two artists who’ve spent decades looking at the same question from different angles: what do we owe the land, and the people who belong to it? 

Preston Singletary is a Tlingit glass artist based in Seattle, known internationally for fusing traditional Tlingit formline design with glassblowing – a material with no place in his ancestors’ toolkit, and yet, in his hands, one of the clearest vessels for their stories. His work sits in the collections of the Smithsonian, the British Museum, and the Seattle Art Museum, and has toured the country in Raven and the Box of Daylight, a solo exhibition built around the Tlingit story of how light came into the world. 

Spike Mafford is a Seattle photographer whose lens has spent the last twenty years fixed on the forests of Washington, Oregon, Canada, and Alaska – and on what we stand to lose as old growth disappears. His images don’t just document the land; they ask us to reckon with our place in it. 

Singletary and Mafford have known each other since middle school, and their creative paths have run in parallel ever since. They’re now developing new collaborative work – monumental photographs of Singletary’s glass and human subjects set within stands of old-growth trees – exploring art, climate change, and Tlingit language and history side by side. At Forterra’s Gathering, they’ll talk about that collaboration, and about the through-line in both of their work: that protecting nature and honoring people are the same act, not two separate ones. 

That’s the spirit of the evening – and its core to why Forterra does this work. On the day the world pauses to think about the planet, we’re gathering to celebrate the artists, storytellers, and neighbors who remind us why land, culture, and community are inseparable. 

Sponsor Packages Now Available

We invite returning and new sponsors to select their preferred tier as soon as possible. Your support makes this event and, more importantly, Forterra’s work throughout Washington possible. Explore our 2027 Forterra Spring Gathering Sponsor Tiers & Benefits. Reach out to partnerships@forterra.org to explore options and benefits. Lock in your spot early to amplify the benefits and impact.

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