Image: Jamie Phillips, Future Fossil 4, 2023, Ceramic, 9 x 6 x 6 inches
Since the beginning of Fall 2022, Heather Watkins has participated in a year-long residency at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU, working with faculty and students in two Freshman Inquiry learning communities. Through workshops, guest lectures, studio visits, and other creative pedagogies, Watkins collaborated with students to create new avenues for understanding and experiencing Watkins’ two public artworks, located on the PSU campus: Score (2014), Lincoln Performance Hall; and Soundings: Opening, Fathoming, Grounding, Searching, Returning (2020), Vanport Building. In this artist talk, Watkins will deliver an overview of this initiative in community-engaged learning that has allowed her to reanimate previous artworks with special attention to artistic process and modes of interpretation. She will also talk about her role in the inaugural curricular exhibition Beautiful Questions, which is currently on view in the Broadway Gallery in Lincoln Hall. Finally, Watkins will discuss the development of a publication (which she received a RACC Arts3C grant to produce) that will encapsulate and archive this exciting and multifaceted project.
Lecture will be held in Lincoln Hall, RM 225. This program is free and open to the public. ASL interpreting will be provided.*
Heather Watkins’ drawings, prints, textiles, sculptures, and installations explore the nature and nuance of line—as form, gesture, and sensation. Her work develops through iterative, experimental processes which embrace flux states and unforeseen results. Watkins holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a dual BA in English & World Literature and Classical Studies, from Pitzer College. Her work has been exhibited in many venues, most recently in a concurrent exhibition at the Cooley Gallery at Reed College: Dark Moves: Fabiola Menchelli & Heather Watkins. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Portland Art Museum, the Miller Meigs Collection, and the Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. She has been awarded grants and residencies from many organizations, including a Regional Arts and Culture Council’s Arts 3C Grant to support a forthcoming publication that documents this project. Heather Watkins is represented by PDX Contemporary Art.
Funding is provided by the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
*Accessibility initiatives have been made possible by a grant from the Richard & Helen Phillips Charitable Fund to the JSMA Community Access Fund.
Tuesday through Saturday, 11 am - 5 pm with extended hours until 7 pm on Thursday.