Clearly Indigenous Audio Exhibition
She Who Watches
She Who Watches, 2014, Lillian Pitt (American, Wasco/Yakama/Warm Springs, b. 1944), 24 x 10 x 10 in. (61 x 25.4 x 25.4 cm), lead crystal, steel, granite, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, L10.2023:96
Verbal Description
Hello, I’m Cole Rodgers, the museum’s project manager. I will be sharing a description of She Who Watches by Lillian Pitt in Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass.
She Who Watches from 2014 is made from lead crystal, steel, and granite. Lillian Pitt, whose Indigenous affiliations are Wasco, Yakama and Warm Springs, created it. She was born in 1944. The work is in the collection of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Crafted from lead crystal, steel, and granite, She Who Watches is on the Balcony in a wall case with four other works. It is placed second from the right. This multi-media object measures 24 inches tall, 10 inches wide, and 10 inches deep, or 61 centimeters tall, 25.4 centimeters wide, and 25.4 centimeters deep. Moving from the bottom to the top, three sections comprise this sculpture. The base is a round, thick piece of light gray granite. Reaching out of this stand is a three-dimensional steel neck that is square at the bottom then narrows and twists to the left at the top where it supports a lead crystal face. The countenance is translucent with pursed lips, a long, narrow nose, exaggerated brow bones, and open eyes. She has two rounded elements that are ear-like on the top of her head. Etched lines cover her jaw and cheeks.
Label Audio
Hello, I’m XXXXX, the museum’s XXXXXX. I will be sharing the label for She Who Watches by Lillian Pitt in Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass.
She Who Watches from 2014 is made from lead crystal, steel, and granite. Lillian Pitt, whose Indigenous affiliations are Wasco, Yakama and Warm Springs, created it. She was born in 1944. The work is in the collection of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Lillian Pitt grew up on the Warm Springs Reservation in the Columbia River Valley in Oregon. She Who Watches is her depiction of a famous rock art image that is perched high on a mountain visible from her ancestral village. Both a petroglyph and a pictograph, it is dominant in the stories and oral history of her people. Pitt made molds in which she then cast this object and Shadow Spirit, on display nearby, in lead crystal.
A petroglyph is an image carved, incised or scratched into stone. A pictograph is a painting on stone.