It has been three years since the thumping sound of an old Singer sewing machine echoed through SFMOMA’s Floor 7 gallery, where visitors encountered three women sitting amid three mountainous piles of garments looming more than six feet tall in red, white, and blue. Occasionally the women conversed with one another or with visitors as they stitched but mostly they focused on their needles and thread, sewing piles of clothing into long trains that trailed out of the gallery. When the last work shift ended, they left their seats and the sewing machine began thumping anew, as if to suggest their labor could be replaced by a mindless machine. This performance installation, Alterations, was on view at the museum in 2019 as part of Suzanne Lacy: We Are Here, the first full retrospective for pioneering social practice artist Suzanne Lacy.
Alterations was first conceived by Lacy with Susanne Cockrell and Britta Kathmeyer in 1994 at Capp Street Projects in San Francisco. Then, and again in 2019, the installation responded to the city’s history of labor activism within the garment industry. Participating seamstresses represented garment workers of predominantly migrant backgrounds, and their work in the exhibition space brought public attention to the inequitable and seemingly invisible labor of women in the context of race and class. The socio-political complexities of women’s labor has long been a research topic of Lacy’s; the work’s conceptual foundations trace back to her education in the 1970s at the Feminist Art Program at the CalArts and the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, where she learned from mentors Allan Kaprow and Judy Chicago. Since the 1980s, Lacy has choreographed visually theatrical tableaux vivants that forge social spaces for women to engage in personal storytelling, temporary community, and dialogue. Her desire to weave intersectional feminist discourse has been innate to her thinking and practice of creating political and socially engaged art.
Recruiting local garment workers proved to be a challenge for the 2019 iteration of Alterations. In the years since the 1994 installation, the city had seen the demise of its once-flourishing garment industry and the absorption of its labor organizing groups. Eventually twenty-six women answered the museum’s call; at the time, all were students, educators, artists, and professional hobbyists who belonged to Bay Area communities focused on textiles arts. Some women recruited by the museum had worked as seamstresses in their previous professions. Others were members of local quilt and costume guilds, or students and teachers at textile studios, fashion schools, and art colleges. The multi-generational group of women came from diverse cultural backgrounds but there was common ground in their relationship with sewing.
Hired to mimic the rigid job responsibilities of a garment worker, the seamstresses had to follow a set of instructions that limited their creative will during the performance. Still, many found a new appreciation for the process and materiality of sewing despite the restricted parameters given by the artist. “I rediscovered hand stitching, and started to relearn different hand stitching techniques,” said Lily Brady. Other performers subverted the imposed conformity by discreetly embroidering the initials of loved ones and sewing specific types of clothing together in a deliberate sequence. These subversions were a privilege, noted performer and artist Edith Brady. “I realized that these seamstresses [garment workers] we were emulating may not have been able to put their stamp on a project, but they could take pride in doing it well.”
Most of the seamstresses learned to sew at a young age, some formally in classes. Many recalled early memories of older women in their families giving them their first sewing supplies. It was a tradition, lifestyle, and skill for self-sufficiency. “It was a practice that existed in our home; that’s part of our life,” said fashion designer and community artist Misha Abbas. An early memory Abbas often revisits is when her ama (mother) made a traditional Pakistani garment – shalwar kameez – for her Barbie. Other participants came from a lineage of professional seamstresses, such as interdisciplinary artist Paola de la Calle. “I learned to sew from my tía Tata who was a seamstress for Coach,” de la Calle said. “At home, she would make costumes and Quinceanera dresses. I’d sit beside her on the sewing machine and she’d let me help.”
For some, sewing projects became a way to honor the work of women in their families. Others used the skill as a form of self-expression, or to care for themselves and others. “My mother was a talented seamstress,” said Patricia Wilcox. “She made my wedding dress, and you would have thought it was made in Paris.” When Wilcox was twelve, she made clothes for her sister’s first child. Participant Christine Raher became involved with the Quilts of Valor Foundation years ago and made a quilt for a family who experienced the loss of their son. At a time, Raher’s son was also injured. “Every one of those stitches meant something to me, ” she said. “I also sew now to show my granddaughters that small tears can be fixed.”
And while the 2019 Alterations underscored for its audiences the labor rights issues migrant women continue to face, the production of the performance created for its performers a sense of community. “The fabric holds a lot of memory, of worn clothes, of discarded clothes, of the touch of the performers, of mending, of repair, and in the togetherness of our conversations,” said Misha Abbas. The conversations occasionally extended to museum visitors. “Many would share that their mother or grandmother had been a seamstress and they hadn’t thought about it,” recalled Edith Brady.
Yet sewing is an act of survival and independence for garment workers. While the above reflections evidence forged community and dialogue, Lacy’s political intentions should not be neglected and are an equally important driver of her work. In 2021, California became the first U.S. state to pass the Garment Worker Protections Act. The anti-wage theft and brand accountability bill requires that manufacturers pay hourly wages to garment workers and bans the piecework system (paying workers per garment) that resulted in salaries far lower than minimum wage. The legislation also promises to improve conditions for workers in the textile industry. In effect as of January 2022, the law was the outcome of persistent grassroots organizing and years of lobbying led by women. Organizers have said the next phase is to strengthen support networks and expand the policy nationally and educate workers about their rights locally.
Alterations will undoubtedly be reimagined in different times and places, assuming new meaning as stories from seamstresses accumulate with each iteration. Derived from the shared conditions of labor and lineage, Lacy’s powerful image of women sewing will continue to raise consciousness about the real-world inequities in women’s labor.
A note of gratitude to performers of the 2019 iteration of Alterations at SFMOMA:
Misha Abbas, Kathe Boyd, Edith Brady, Lily Brady, Vibrata Chromodoris, Gail De Martis, Paola de la Calle, Bora Han, Claire Harper, Crystal Herman, Leticia Huerta, Mehrzad Khajenoori, Isabelle Le, Rebecca Marquez, Nancy Martin, Tina Martin, Sam Mercado, Sabrina L. Nelson, Catherine Nolan, Janice Paredes, Luci Pelton, Christine Raher, Xochi Ramos, Jennifer Schulze, Alicia Serling, Patricia Wilcox.
Notes
- The title of this essay is borrowed from Suzanne Lacy’s 1982 text published in Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974–2007 , comprised of self-examining journal entries that recount her process of organizing performances and her reflections on the aftermaths of these events.
