Marie Watt stitched strips of bright wool blankets into a Möbius-like loop (a surface with only one side and only one edge), a form that demonstrates both continuity and change. This piece resonates with some of Watt’s sculptural work representing curved stacks of blankets. These Möbius forms, says Watt, evoke the receptive comfort of cradles and rockers/rocking chairs—objects that, like a cozy blanket, can safely encircle our bodies at the beginning and end of life. Blankets also have special meanings in Native American communities as gifts and garments.
Watt acquired the blankets for Conversation (Mount Hope) from secondhand stores in Portland, Oregon, where she lives, and also as gifts. In the bottom right corner, she stitched the tag from a blanket from Mount Hope Farm in Williamstown, Massachusetts. “The journey that this blanket took from Williamstown, to a fellow human, to a Portland thrift store, to my studio, and then back to the East Coast is a significant one,” she says. “Who knows how many people touched it or were sheltered or covered by it? We are constantly imprinting upon these blankets.”
Text Written by Laura Allen (Curator of Native American Art)
This work is not on view.
