Edson's+Flag

Date: 2004
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/2015/2015.28.7_1a.jpg&max=460 width="271" height="375" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=109657"]] || Title: **Edson's Flag**

Artist: **Marie Watt** Born: Seattle, Washington 1967

Medium: American flag (from U.S. military burial) with wool blankets, satin, and thread Dimensions: 130 × 84 in. (330.2 × 213.4 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Driek and Michael Zirinsky in honor of Jane Beebe and Spencer Beebe © 2004, Marie K. Watt

Accession: 2015.28.7 || //Edson’s Flag// (2004) is one of the blankets Watt has created. To make this blanket Watt combined a U.S. Army funeral flag, reclaimed wool blankets, satin bindings, and thread. Blankets are objects that hold meaning for Watt and more broadly American Indians. The artist has exhibited her numerous blankets, samplers, and other pieces that incorporate fabric. For instance, //Edson’s Flag// appeared in the 2003 to 2005 NMAI exhibition, //Continuum//, held at the Heye Center in New York City. //Continuum// featured works by living American Indian artists. Watt was the youngest artist, and other artists included Harry Fonseca, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and George Longfish (Dobkins, 45-46).
 * About the Artwork: **

Watt works with commonplace materials that she associates with stories. These materials include woolen blankets, cedar, and iron. Watt draws on pre-Columbian, colonial, and contemporary concepts and motifs. She is a member of the Seneca Nation. Cultural legacies of the Seneca are especially important to Watt. “History, biography, protofeminism, Indigenous principles, and … the interaction of the arc of history with the intimacy of memory,” inspire the artist’s works (“About Marie Watt,” Marie Watt Studio). She constructs blankets alone and in collaboration with others. Large works are a community effort produced in “sewing circles.” Participants tell and discuss stories while they sew.
 * About the Artist: **

Watt, her husband, and their two daughters live in Portland, Oregon. She exhibits her work at the PDX Contemporary Art in Portland and the Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle. Watt also shows her work internationally.

Dobkins, Rebecca J. //Marie Watt: Lodge// (Washington: University of Washington Press, 2012).
 * Resources: **

Fowler, Cynthia. “Materiality and Collective Experience Sewing as Artistic Practice in Works by Marie Watt, Nadia Myre, and Bonnie Devine.” //American Indian Quarterly// 34, No. 3 (Summer 2010), 344-364.

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page Marie Watt’s Website
 * Links: **