The Corning Museum of Glass has named Ken Williams Jr. the recipient of its 2026 Rakow Commission, the first time in the award's four decades that it has gone to a beadwork artist. The new work, a framed wall panel titled "I Am the Hungry Cat", was unveiled on 5 November during a public lecture by the artist, and is now on view in the museum's Contemporary Art + Design Galleries.

Williams, who is Northern Arapaho and Cattaraugus Seneca, built the panel from glass beads in 68 different colours, ranging from historic to contemporary makes. It shows his cat, Valentino, in bold graphic lines, with thought bubbles picturing the animal's favourite foods, a motif from the artist's ongoing "Yum Series". The museum describes the image as a self-portrait in disguise, and the piece marks a deliberate move away from the functional and wearable forms beadwork is usually associated with, towards a standalone picture made to hang on a wall. Pop Art and a bright palette shape its look.

Williams learned beadwork as a child on the Cattaraugus Seneca Territory and later refined his technique with master beadworkers from his mother's Northern Arapaho family. He studied museum studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and his pictorial beadwork has since entered collections including the Heard Museum and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. He has said the commission let him try a new format for a medium he has used all his life to tell stories, and that the recognition matters because beadwork carries generations of knowledge.

The Rakow Commission has been awarded every year since 1986, endowed by the late Dr. and Mrs. Leonard S. Rakow, and supports an artist working in glass to make a new piece they might not otherwise be able to attempt. Earlier recipients include Lino Tagliapietra, Toots Zynsky and Preston Singletary. The museum's curator of postwar and contemporary glass, Tami Landis, said Williams's work shows how Indigenous traditions can engage with contemporary art, and its director noted the first beadwork commission arrives as the museum marks its 75th anniversary and the commission its 40th.