Suzanne Lacy and (Los Angeles 1975 to 198-)
Collaborations with Evalina Newman, a resident of Guy Miller Homes in Watts.

As artist in residence at the Guy Miller Homes, a HUD-funded urban housing project for the elderly, Lacy developed a friendship with Evalina Newman. Over several years they designed a series of activities, installations, and performances that grew out of their relationship and Newman’s community.

The first installation was initiated by Newman to organize elderly residents through the creation of a Quilting Club where residents provided services to senior citizens homes. The Club decided to present a portrait of the community—its creative expressions (women practiced gardening, home decoration, and a series of crafts, including quilting), its organizing, and its security needs. They recruited politicians, police representatives, artists from Los Angeles, and local activists to an “art exhibition” in the resident’s recreation hall/gallery, its purpose to attract attention to residents needs under the guise of art. Lacy’s “photo quilts” were displayed alongside quilts, wire poodles, doll’s head Kleenex box covers, and crocheted pot holders.

Newman and Lacy collaborated on a durational “act” that began in Watts on a Saturday night. From Newman’s home they placed a call to artist Nancy Buchanan at a gallery in downtown Los Angeles where an audience waited. Hanging up the phone, Nancy announced the piece had begun, showing slides of Newman and Lacy and playing a recorded phone conversation where Newman said her heart condition would prevent her from riding a bus in that part of the city.

Newman walked Lacy to the bus stop with her small pistol in her apron pocket. Lacy rode the city streets for over an hour; a brick shattered a window but the driver did not stop. At the stop, a desolate downtown street, Lacy ran the final mile to the gallery. The performance was completed when she arrived without fanfare, a party in process, and called Newman.

In a final installation in 1980, Lacy commemorated Newman’s premature death from heart failure by re-creating her living room with personal artifacts donated by residents. Surrounded by photographs of Newman, her artwork, an unfinished quilt and her favorite furniture, a sewing machine chattered perpetually, propelled by an unseen foot. Residents of the Guy Millers Homes attended the opening at the Woman’s Building to honor Evalina Newman.