A Clockwork Raven: Preston Singletary

 

As we enter the exhibition of Preston Singletary’s  “A Clockwork Raven,” we  first  see  this extraordinary construction with Raven lying under a contraption that is dripping oil rendered from salmon heads, a traditional healing oil  for the Tlingit.

 

 

 

 

We  stand shocked as we  look  down on Raven and wonder what ths is about.

A Clockwork Orange was  a  film  about gang violence in  the early 70s. So how do we  see  it  applyig here.  Raven goes  through several iterations  in the  exhibition,  each of them  representing a side of R aven we have not  seen before,  enmeshed  in greed and violence.How can we understand it??

 

The answer lies in the stories that Garth Stein wrote to accompany  the exhibition. He begins :

“It began as a  way to save the world from itself. Or rather to  save the People of the world from  their own self destructive nature. For the People hd  groooooown sick  verily- they were pale, bloated, hairless  thngs covered  wth rashes, bags under their eyes…”

 

 

Raven’s plan was to provide healing for his people through feeding them rendered oil  from fish heads.

But the plan didn’t work.

 

Raven built a rendering faciltiy but when it was finished he lay under it and became intoxicated. “Raven lolled on his back, bloated, the fish oil pumping  ceaselessly into his belly. He couldnt move, couldnt  think and the contraption pumped .”

 

But  then he woke up and grabbed a seal who ignored  him  because he  was  so fat.

Lazy Raven/Strong Raven (below)  suggests  he is  regaining  his power

 

 

 

So he jumped  into the water and got hold of a log and floated and drifted.

 

 

“The sea carried  them”

Eventually they landed and dried  out and Raven flew  up and over Seattle where  he  has several adventures . First he meets a man who looks like a homeless man  who says he is Raven.

He is shadow raven  .

They are going between worlds!

Underneath Pioneer Square  is a whole world Raven and the shadow raven go into a nightclub  underneath pioneer square

 

 

 

 

 

Two other works give us the backgound on Raven . Both called “Upon the Mountain Top: Raven started as  a whie bird,  but as a  result  of  stealing the sun  ( Box of Daylight) he was singed  black.

Finally we have Inner Dialogue” This is a piece  that suggests the two sides  of  Raven, the trickster, the violent  and  the  greedy as opposed to  the caring. 

 

 

 

the final piece in the story is “noble truth” in which Raven talks to  Killer Whale. He says to Raven

 

“Raven the cycle of violence  can be stopped if the Will is present. If there is no will, the poeple will become like cannibals  and eat each other until there are  none left”

But raven slept on.

At te opening of the exibition Preston told more animalstories, not this one,  that encompassed the oter animals in the exhibition. while he was talking, the technology misbehaved,  but he never paused.He continued to tell his story.

It was a moving  experience.

The exhibtion ended this weekend, I am sorry to say, but the book with the story is available through the gallery.

Although Traver’s new gallery is not as atmosphereic as the old gallery on Pioneer Square,  the new expansiveness givess space for  each sculpture to breathe.

But I can’t resist ending wth ths photo of his last exhibition at the old Traver, about which I wrote on this blog.