It was totally unexpected. Hanging out with roommates on a lazy Friday night 11 years ago, one of them said, “You know, you can blow glass.”
It was a simple sentence, but it was one that took hold of Evanston, Ill. native Peter Singleton and wouldn’t let go. It was a meaningful utterance in a number of ways. Singleton had literally moved to Seattle because of a dream he’d had. The dream had come to him at a time of turmoil. “My wife decided to leave me,” he explained. “I was all messed up in the head and broken hearted and didn’t know what I wanted do, but I had that dream one night.”
The fateful reverie told him where to go, but not why and he had stepped out in faith. Finally, he knew the reason.
Peter Singleton grew up in a large family of nine children in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago best known for being the home of Northwestern University alma mater for people such as Duchess Meghan Markle, television producer Mara Brock Akil and Spelman President Johnetta B. Cole. “We grew up, all nine of us together like brothers and sisters,” he said. “There were seven of us, and my mother and father took in two of my cousins when their mother passed.”
He was particularly close to his sisters from whom he says he learned the importance of respecting women. “I grew up with five sisters and used to play with paper dolls with them and everything,” he said.
The innocent utterance of his roommate sent Singleton to the library, where he took out a book on glass blowing. “It was on an artist called William Morris,” he recalled. “It was amazing work and I had never looked at glass in that way, in that fashion.”
The librarian, impressed with his passion, referred him to Seattle’s Pratt Fine Arts Center, where he took classes and eventually became an unofficial apprentice. “My jaw was dropped,” he said. “I was blown away. I never saw glass like that before, and it captured me in a very different way.”
He quit his job and started working at a company that made windshields. Singleton, who is more than 6 feet tall and the color of dark chocolate with a boyish visage, laughs at his former naïveté. “It wasn’t what I thought it would be,” he said. “I just saw that it said glass and I saw what I wanted to do and thought I could learn something there. I just wanted to be around glass as much as possible.”
Singleton also left his apartment, moving into a homeless shelter for five years. It was a sacrifice that gave him the freedom he needed to pursue his craft and meet people who could help him move forward. He ran into a number of different master artists who took him under their wings. Singleton then ended up in Pilchuck Glass School, where he launched his first exhibition, which was received very positively.
Still, he had to take an alternative route to start to get his work out there. “I was trying to go through the galleries,” he explained. “Everybody went through the galleries. I went to all the galleries.” He was turned down by all of them.
Because Singleton was a regular visitor at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, the head of its Hot Shop, which is a working studio for glass making, invited him to showcase his work there.
“He said, ‘How about I give you two free Fridays?’” Singleton recalled. “I was psyched!”
The two successful museum shows motivated him to put together more exhibitions for his work. He found underground venues where he could do multimedia showcases his way.
“It was a new niche that I found” he said. “I got thrown into this space that was unconventional, and I liked it! I did a show with rap artists, with DJs spinning, with poets. What I didn’t realize at that time was I wanted to show glass through the lens of my culture.”
Although he is still a proverbial struggling artist, Singleton now travels across the U.S. putting on exhibits of his glass artwork in the same sort of underground venues with multimedia accompaniment. He has big dreams for his work.
“I want to make glass art part of the urban conversation,” he said. “Anything that’s urban, I want to reach that audience. I want Black people to start talking about glass art. I want them to say ‘I know what a Reticello is, I know how a goblet is made, I know the difference between Czech glassmaking and Italian glassmaking.’”
Singleton does more glass sculpture than functional glass work, such as creating plates or bowls. His work gives off a feeling of freedom and whimsy. The 30-something Singleton admires artists such as Karen Willenbrink, whose work he says has a way of drawing in the viewer and fostering a feeling of community.
For anyone else out there harboring unconventional dreams, he said, “Everyone’s path is different. That’s the first thing. And your heart has to be in it. If you love something go for it. There’s gonna be good days and bad days, but you have to keep going. There’s nothing wrong with thinking different.”
He considers himself blessed to have a support system that keeps him going during his moments of doubt. His best friends, poet and singer Queenie and Lady Mercedes, are often the wind beneath his wings.
Five years ago, Singleton made New York City his home base and has lived in Harlem for the past year. It is having an impact on him as an artist.
“Harlem has such a beautiful rich Black history that is really pushing me as an artist,” he said. “It’s making me not only want to show Black culture, but show the story of Black culture. There’s just something about Harlem and its swagger.”