A member of the Seneca Tribe of the Iroquois nation, Watt identifies herself as “half cowboy and half Indian.” Her approach to making art is shaped by the proto-feminism of Iroquois matrilineal custom, political work by Native American artists in the 1960s, a discourse on multiculturalism, and Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Like Jasper Johns, she interested in "things that the mind already knows." Unlike Pop artists, she uses a vocabulary of natural materials (including stone, cornhusks, wool, and cedar) and forms (such as blankets, pillows, and bridges) that are universal to the human experience and non-commercial in character.

Watt’s sculpture, Blanket Stories: Compass, will be on display in Beloit College’s Wright Museum of Art from Sept. 7 through Dec. 16, 2007. The installation — a three-dimensional piece made of towers of wool blankets — explores the heritage and associations of blankets. It incorporates blankets that Watt spent years collecting, including many Hudson's Bay point blankets that were given to Native Americans in trade by the Hudson's Bay Company during the 19th century.

In 2004, Blanket Stories: Compass was featured in at the George Gustave Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian in New York as part of the Continuum 12 Artists series.

Watt holds a bachelor’s degree in art from Willamette University, and a master’s degree from Yale University. She has also studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Related Link:

Marie Watt home page