Hometown native works tell stories

by in At the Museums dept, Storybook Section
“Companion Species (Rock Creek, Ancestor, What’s Going On”) 2021. Lithography and pressure printing on Japanese kozo, collage, backed with Sekishu, unique print 1/1, by Marie Watt. Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. (Image: Aaron Wessling Photography)

PORTLAND, OR (PNAN) – Going on view Tuesday, August 26, 2025, “Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt” showcases over 60 prints, sculptures, and textiles that highlight the artist’s career from 1996 to the present at Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU. The exhibition will be on view through December 6, 2025.

Storyteller Marie Watt born in 1967, in the Pacific Northwest, calls Portland her hometown for almost the last 30 years. As a member of Seneca Nation (Turtle Clan) with German-Scot ancestry, she tells stories that draw from Native and non-Native traditions: Greco-Roman myth, pop music and Pop art, Indigenous oral narratives, Star Wars and Star Trek. As a Klamath elder once told her: “My story changes when I know your story.”

Watt reminds us of stories told by her Seneca ancestors: How the world came to be. What we have to learn from animals; and Our ethical obligations to the planet, as well as to past and future generations.

“Companion Species” (Cosmos)” 2017. Reclaimed wool blankets, embroidery floss, 24k gold wrapped silk embroidery floss and thread, 31 x 37 inches, by Marie K. Watt (Seneca, born 1967), Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. Photo by Strode Photographic.

She tells stories about humble, everyday materials and objects like blankets, quilts, corn husks, letters, ladders, and dream catchers that carry intimate meanings and memories. Over the course of her career, Watt has told these stories through prints. The stories the prints tell are personal, cultural, and universal, dealing with elemental themes including shelter, dreams, the earth, the sky, and the cosmos.

Since this exhibition first debuted in 2022, Watt’s repertoire of stories has continued to expand and grow. This exhibition at ‘Jordan’ will have the new work Watt has created in the past three years, including “Forest Shifts Light” (Sequoia, Crest, Canopy), 2025, a jingle cloud sculpture which was commissioned for this showing.