Marie Watt (born 1967) is a contemporary artist living and working in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

. Enrolled in the

Seneca Nation of Indians The Seneca Nation of Indians is a federally recognized Seneca tribe based in western New York. They are one of three federally recognized Seneca entities in the United States, the others being the Tonawanda Band of Seneca (also in western New Y ...

, Watt has created work primarily with textile arts and community collaboration centered on diverse Native American themes.

Background

Marie Watt was born in 1967 in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

. She majored in Speech Communications and Art at

Willamette University Willamette University is a private liberal arts college with locations in Salem and Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest college in the Western United States. Originally named the Oregon Institute, the school was an unaffiliated ...

in Salem, Oregon. She also explored museum studies at the

Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic S ...

in Santa Fe. She holds an AFA degree from the

, a

BS degree A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

from

and an MFA degree in Painting and Printmaking from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

. Watt is a member of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation and her father's family were

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

ranch A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most ofte ...

ers. These two factors in her background have influenced her artwork; Watt describes herself as "half Cowboy and half Indian."

Artwork

Watt works primarily with blankets as a material in her installation and collaborative works. She also prints

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

. For her sculpture and installation, she uses a variety of materials, including everyday objects, as well as

textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

alabaster Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that include ...

, slate, and cornhusks. She cites Pop art, Abstract Expressionism, and indigenous visual traditions as sources for her work. Watt had a studio in Portland, Oregon and started experimenting with materials, such as corn husk, then began experimenting with woven blankets. In 2002, her stone sculpture ''Pedestrian'' was installed along the east bank of the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...

in Portland. Her work has appeared in several exhibitions in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

. Watt involves community effort when creating artworks. Her project ''Blanket Stories: Transportation Object, Generous Ones'' at the

Tacoma Art Museum The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) is an art museum in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It focuses primarily on the art and artists from the Pacific Northwest and broader western region of the U.S. Founded in 1935, the museum has strong roots in the c ...

involved creating large-scale installations out of blankets donated by the community. Not only are the blankets the medium but "Watt believes that blankets provide access to social connections, historical traditions, and cross-cultural meanings." Watt hosts sewing circles, groups who gather and work such as with the piece ''Forget me not: Mothers and Sons'' in which they constructed portraits of servicemen (and one woman) from Oregon killed in the Iraqi war.

Career

In September 2004, as part of the ''Continuum 12 artists'' series, an exhibit of her work opened in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and

the George Gustav Heye Center The National Museum of the American Indian–New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, is a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York City. The museum is part of the Sm ...

of the

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

. The exhibit included ''Blanket Stories'', a sculpture made of two towers of

wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. ...

blankets, with each stack sewn together with a central thread. She collected the blankets over several years, including many

Hudson's Bay point blanket A Hudson's Bay point blanket is a type of wool blanket traded by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in British North America, now Canada and the United States from 1779 to present. The blankets were typically traded to First Nations in exchange for b ...

s that were given to Native Americans in trade by the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

during the 19th century. In 2011, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation commissioned Watt to produce a

site-specific art Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. Site-specific art is produced both by commercial artists, and independently, and can ...

work for their Seattle campus. The work, entitled ''Blanket Stories: Matriarch, Guardian and Seven Generations'', is a 14-foot column of wool blankets from all over the world and is located in the building's lobby. Describing how the materials fit this specific location, Watt wrote, "It's the first column I've made with the explicit goal of collecting and integrating blankets from around the world, echoing the Foundation's global mission; the column will be constructed of reclaimed blankets and reclaimed cedar, in resonance with the campus' goal of attaining LEED Gold certification." In 2014, 350 people contributed to an outdoor sculpture at Tacoma Art Museum. The towers she made were cast in bronze and she posted a micro-website with stories behind each blanket. Watt listens to her material and pulls from a deep sense of community and narrative to create works with history. Her works are both figurative and abstract. Watt is currently a professor at

Portland Community College Portland Community College (PCC) is a public community college in Portland, Oregon. It is the largest post-secondary institution in the state and serves residents in the five-county area of Multnomah, Washington, Yamhill, Clackamas, and Colum ...

, and is the coordinator of its Northview Gallery.

Selected exhibitions

* ''Vantage Point: The Contemporary Native Art Collection''.

, Smithsonian Institution. (2010) * ''Unsuspected Possibilities: Leonardo Drew, Sarah Oppenheimer, and Marie Watt''.

SITE Santa Fe SITE Santa Fe (often referred to simply as SITE) is a nonprofit contemporary arts organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since its founding in 1995, SITE Santa Fe has presented 11 biennials, more than 90 contemporary art exhibitions, and w ...

. (2015) * ''Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019.''

Whitney Museum of Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

. (2019-2022) * ''Indelible Ink: Native Women, Printmaking, Collaboration''. University of New Mexico Art Museum. (2020)

Awards and fellowships

* 2005 Eiteljorg Museum Artist Fellowship * 2006 Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship * 2007

Anonymous Was A Woman Award The Anonymous Was A Woman Award is a grant program for women artists who are over 40 years of age, in part to counter sexism in the art world. It began in 1996 in direct response to the National Endowment for the Arts' decision to stop funding in ...

* 2009

Bonnie Bronson Fellowship The Bonnie Bronson Fellowship, named after American painter and sculptor Bonnie Bronson, is an award presented annually to Pacific Northwest artists. Recipients * Christine Bourdette (1992) * Judy Cooke (1993) * Ronna Neuenschwander (1994) * ...

Notes

External links

*
KPSU Art Talk interview with Marie WattOregon Art Beat: Sculptor Marie WattIn Conversation with Marie Watt: A New Coyote Tale
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watt, Marie 1967 births Living people Native American installation artists Native American printmakers Artists from Portland, Oregon Seneca people Willamette University alumni Yale School of Art alumni Institute of American Indian Arts alumni 21st-century Native American artists American women installation artists American installation artists American women printmakers Portland Community College alumni Native American women artists 21st-century American artists 21st-century American women artists 21st-century Native American women