An enrolled member of the Seneca Nation of Indians (one of six comprising the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) and of German-Scottish ancestry, Marie Watt incorporates community and storytelling throughout her making process as well as in the narratives of her completed works. M. Watt merges the Indigenous feminist customs of the community-centred process, politically charged Indigenous artistic practices, and collaborative methodologies that recentre Indigenous voice and experience.

M. Watt grew up in Seattle, Washington. Her upbringing in the Northwest and her Indigenous identity have shaped her artistic practice. In her textile practice, M. Watt uses repurposed blankets as a marker for our memories and stories, especially of loved ones, such as in Blanket Stories (2004-Ongoing). These blankets refer to Indigenous use and history being reclaimed; M. Watt asserts Indigenous cultural continuity in the history of settler trade, genocidal attempts (settlers giving blankets infected with illnesses like smallpox to Indigenous people), the adoption of the blanket into Indigenous cultural norms (such as gifts to individuals for participating in important events), and, finally, the blanket as an item that accompanies us at birth and in death. The forms of these blankets have totemic sculptural qualities that draw on the conifers and carved totems of the Pacific Northwest. In her other blanket-focused works that include community-based stitching projects, M. Watt employs Indigenous-making practices, or making alongside and with community members, that is more about the process and Indigenous feminist space created by encouraging other crafters to “leave their mark”.

While M. Watt is best known for her blankets, which she started in 2002, she also utilises other mediums, including painting, printmaking and various materials, such as cornhusks and stone. Most recently she uses beading in her text-oriented works and has expanded her sculptural assemblages into metal cone-encompassed sculptural forms referencing the Ojibwe-originated healing jingle dress dance. M. Watt also incorporates steel beams that draw on the history of Haudenosaunee (a number of whom were Mohawk) ironworkers that built many of the skyscrapers of Manhattan. The significance of these men being deemed “Skywalkers” is that the bridging of earth and sky they participated in also draws parallels to the Haudenosaunee creation story of Sky Woman.

M. Watt holds an MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University, a BS in Speech Communications and Art from Willamette University (Salem), and an AFA in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts (Sante Fe). Her works are in collections across the United States, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington), the Seattle Art Museum (Seattle), Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven), the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville), the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.), the Portland Art Museum (Portland) and the Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma).