Objects become meaningful through the acts of making, acquiring, using, and viewing. They have the power to evoke, connect, and trigger collective memories. However, objects encountered in museum exhibitions and collections have often been separated from their stories. The artist’s identity, the community of origin, and the economic, creative, and practical functions of an object are often forgotten — replaced by generic and tentative identities, becoming a source for academic speculation. However, by listening with our eyes, we can sometimes recover these stories. Ignored in historic documents, women’s voices can be heard and their knowledge retrieved by careful study of the material in museum collections. The most ordinary object in a museum collection can be unpacked to reveal the artist, her purpose, and traces of her personality. As the movement to revitalize Indigenous knowledge gains momentum, museum collections will become increasingly important, often providing our only surviving record of women’s scientific, technological, and aesthetic knowledge.