Joyce J. Scott’s “Walk a Mile in My Dreams” exhibit opens at SAM
When I was young, I knew I loved making clothes. I used to take fabric and wrap it around my dolls, haphazardly sewing it into dresses. As I grew older, my grandmother taught me the basics of sewing and even arranged for me to help a local woman from church with her alteration business. Since then, I’ve been one of the few people around with sewing skills, which has opened doors for me in theater and film.
During the press preview of Joyce J. Scott’s new exhibition, “Walk a Mile in My Dreams”, she said that the “needle was her passport” to the world. When her mother taught her to sew, it opened opportunities that allowed her to live as an artist. This struck me. I feel the same way — if it weren’t for my sewing skills, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy.
The rest of the exhibit takes you deep into Scott’s life, from being the granddaughter of sharecroppers, to performing vaudeville, to becoming a glass-beading genius. The 50-year retrospective is an overwhelming showcase of work from an artist whose name deserves to be much better known.
This exhibit is a collaboration between the Seattle Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art, with Seattle being only the second city to host it after Scott’s hometown of Baltimore. One question I posed to Scott was, “Why Seattle?” Seattle is white. Very white. Scott’s exhibit is centered on Blackness — addressing police brutality, lynchings, and rape, all set against imagery like man eating watermelons and smiling mammies. I wondered why bring an exhibit like this to a city where audiences tend to engage with issues of race and injustice in the same way they might with someone talking too loudly on the bus — polite disengagement and barely suppressed resentment. White people in Seattle rarely want to be confronted, especially by race.
A curator from Baltimore said that Seattle was “overdue” for an exhibit by Scott, but overdue for whom? Certainly not for the Black residents of Seattle, who are confronted by depictions of race and brutality every time we open Facebook or walk down the street. So who is this really for?
Many conversations, especially in art, revolve around whether the intended audience is white or Black. If the intended audience is white, how does that impact the work of the artist? Does the art need to become more graphic to jolt white audiences awake, to make them understand the realities of race? Will bodycam footage of a cop stepping on an innocent man’s neck be enough? What about a shooting? A lynching? Burning someone alive? A crucifixion? What will finally make white people see? What’s been stopping them for the past 300 years? In discussing her work, Scott describes the dual harm of racism: “If you’re standing on my neck, neither of us can move.” Racism affects both parties, neither of us have freedom in that circumstance, we are both suffering.
When we entered the gallery, Scott greeted us with an a cappella rendition of “For What It’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield:
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?
Scott talked about how there’s no room for misinterpretation in her art. It’s hard to see it any other way. Throughout the tour, she repeatedly said, “You can’t tell me what to do,” emphasizing that her art is ultimately for herself. When we discussed why she creates such beautiful art about grotesque things, Scott said it’s a form of therapy: “Better out than in.” She explained that her work draws people in with its beauty and then “strangles” them with its message. She likens herself to Anansi, the trickster spider, using humor to convey hard truths while avoiding danger, like a modern-day court jester.
Scott’s humor was a highlight of the tour. Her quick-witted jokes often went unnoticed by the dry Seattle crowd of journalists, but her ability to point out the absurdities of racism was sharp. From depicting Obama as Mickey Mouse to a white woman on a date with a large, Black phallus, to naming her vaudeville troupe “The Thunder Thigh Revue”, Scott uses humor to cope. “Laughing is a form of vulnerability,” she said. “When you’re laughing so hard you can’t control your body, it’s easy to slip the message in.”
At the end of the exhibit, several looms were set up. Scott talked about the African American tradition of placing looms under the dinner table, using the table’s legs to hold the weft while weaving. She invites the audience to participate in creating a new piece — something imperfect, tangible, and intimate, like a blanket. The final work will be auctioned off for charity.
The exhibit’s pieces — quilting, beading, glasswork, video — are all stunning. Scott moves effortlessly between mediums with the mastery of an artist confident in her craft. Being in her presence was extraordinary. At a time when it feels more important than ever to give attention to Black artists, especially while they’re alive, this exhibition deserves all the time you can give it.
It’s running at the Seattle Art Museum until January 19, 2025, and features an excellent audio guide that I highly recommend.
Artist Joyce J. Scott sings
