Marie Watt

Skywalker/Skyscraper, 2022

Reclaimed blankets, reclaimed cedar, steel I-beams

Vary

Presented by Catharine Clark Gallery

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Marie Watt notes that blankets “are everyday objects that can carry extraordinary histories of use,” and that “in Indigenous communities” such as the Seneca Nation (of which Watt is a member), “blankets are given away to honor those who are witness to important life events.” Skywalker/Skyscraper, by extension, was inspired by Watt’s move to Brooklyn, and her discovery that the border of Cobble Hill and Gowanus (the locations of her home and studio, respectively) was “where Iroquois ironworkers and their families settled in the 1950s, when most of Manhattan’s skyscrapers were being built.” Watt remarks that “these Iroquois were called ‘skywalkers’ due to their ability to work on the high steel without safety harnesses.”