Ledger: Predator and Prey
Artist: Marie Watt (Native American (Seneca), born 1967)
Date: 2015
Dimensions:
19 × 14 in. (48.3 × 35.6 cm)
Medium: Reclaimed wool blanket, satin binding, thread and embroidery floss
Classification: Textiles and Fiber
Credit Line: Purchased with funds given by Dr. Loren Lipson
Object number: 2018.42
Label Text:"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.”
Ledger: Predator and Prey is a small but powerful example of Marie Watt’s work with blankets. For Watt, blankets are rich in symbolic meaning. As objects, they offer us comfort and protection throughout life, from cradle to grave. As cultural artifacts, blankets bear the mark of the place and time in which they were made. It is appropriate, then, that many cultures, including the Seneca Nation into which Watt was born, have used blankets as a way to pass down traditions.
Watt uses small-scale embroidered work to experiment with ideas in process. Here, the iconography is intentionally jarring, juxtaposing embroidered images of a U.S. Predator drone and an eagle in flight. Watt treats the subject with delicate embroidery and pastel-colored fabric, an incongruous combination that contributes to the sense of unease. The work powerfully contrasts old with new, technology with nature and draws out larger questions about power and the ancient theme of predator and prey.
Ledger: Predator and Prey is a small but powerful example of Marie Watt’s work with blankets. For Watt, blankets are rich in symbolic meaning. As objects, they offer us comfort and protection throughout life, from cradle to grave. As cultural artifacts, blankets bear the mark of the place and time in which they were made. It is appropriate, then, that many cultures, including the Seneca Nation into which Watt was born, have used blankets as a way to pass down traditions.
Watt uses small-scale embroidered work to experiment with ideas in process. Here, the iconography is intentionally jarring, juxtaposing embroidered images of a U.S. Predator drone and an eagle in flight. Watt treats the subject with delicate embroidery and pastel-colored fabric, an incongruous combination that contributes to the sense of unease. The work powerfully contrasts old with new, technology with nature and draws out larger questions about power and the ancient theme of predator and prey.
DescriptionJuxtaposed embroidered image of a bomber jet with a bird in flight
On view