Watermark Art Center will host a presentation by Miikanan Gallery Program Director Karen E. Goulet titled “Indigenous Innovations in the Arts” on Thursday, March 22 at 6:30 p.m.

Goulet has been showing art both nationally and internationally for twenty years. She creates a variety of textile art, including needle art, quilt making, surface design, weaving, mixed media and knitting. Her presentation at Watermark will include observations regarding evolving trends in contemporary Indigenous art. The presentation is free to attend, no registration required.

“Throughout time, Indigenous people have always embraced new materials as a means of enriching their creative expressions. There are regional aesthetics that define art from a ‘place’ but there is so much more potential and possibility of what is out there and has yet to be explored. Art can enhance and enrich, but also challenge and provoke. We need all aspects in order to more fully express who we are as individual artists, as well as members of communities and nations. I believe we have to challenge ourselves and others to rethink the possibilities. Whether using a needle or camera lens we are still traditional, we are still contemporary.”

Goulet earned her BA in Fine Arts and Cultural Education from The Evergreen State College, her MFA in Sculpture from The University of Wisconsin – Madison, and her M Ed from University of Minnesota Duluth. Throughout her career, she has worked primarily in education, most often with Indigenous institutions and programs. She is an enrolled member of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation.