Handmade Histories
by Marie Watt
The work of Marie Watt is featured in our Summer 2010 issue. Here she shares her most recent series, Marker.
My work explores human stories and rituals implicit in everyday objects. I consciously draw from indigenous design principles, oral traditions, and personal experience to shape the inner logic of the work I make. My recent work in the Marker series (2010) explores the history of wool blankets. As I fold and stack blankets, they begin to form columns that have references to linen closets, architectural braces, memorials, sculpture (Constantin Brâncusi for one), the great totem poles of the Northwest, and the conifer trees with which I grew up. These blanket forms also present themselves in other mediums of my work—such as with printmaking, bronze, and cedar. In the case of my wood cuts, I appreciate the warm tactile quality of the material. There is a familiarity and intimacy with wood that again reminds me of blankets. The material offers another layer of story that is physically and metaphorically woven into the work, like with cedar, which is considered to be a sacred natural resource for indigenous people of the Northwest or the hope chests in which blankets are stored.
All works are made with reclaimed wool and satin; handstitched; 2010. Images courtesy of PDX Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon. Photos: Aaron Johanson.
Lamp; 18¼" x 16¾".
Axis Mundi; 16¼" x 18¼".
Tether; 20¾" x 18½".
Sky World; 17¾" x 19¾".
Totem; 20" x 15".
Arbor; 18¾" x 23¼".
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