Stitching Desire

Sas Colby
Keith Smith

Organized by Megan N. Liberty

April 18 - June 7, 2026

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Throughout their ongoing careers, artists Sas Colby (b. 1939) and Keith Smith (b. 1938) have both experimented with a variety of media, from photography to fabric and textiles, to photocopying and printing. Both artists have created fabric wall-hangings, bookworks, mail art, and more. For each, stitching—both materially and metaphorically—is at the center of much of their practices. From the stitching required to bind a book, to the machine-stitched drawings added to collaged photographs and photocopies, the artists stitch together literary and autobiographical references, making manifest desires for themselves and their family, erotic and romantic desires, and a desire for network and community.

In the early 1970s, artist Sas Colby began experimenting with fabric and textiles, creating a series of wearable artworks, such as capes and masks, that were used in celebratory processions; stitched, quilted, and patchworked wall-hangings; and fabric sculptures. This period was one of discovery and experimentation. Colby traveled to Europe, taught textile workshops across the US and began making fabric bookworks. In 1975 she relocated from Connecticut to Berkeley California, where she lived nearby a copy center on Telegraph Avenue, adding another layer of material experimentation to her practice. The results of this fruitful period in her career remain evident throughout her expansive body of work.

As the son of a seamstress, Keith Smith grew up around sewing and textiles. His early 1960s photographs show an interest in seriality, often experimenting with printing full contact sheets to capture movement and time. But ultimately, the best format Smith found for his experimentation has been the book. Smith has produced over 300 bookworks, including trade books and unique and limited-edition books that blend stitching, photocopier prints, photoetchings, and phototransfers. Both his bookworks and fabric works allow for movement and durational narratives. Some of his most exciting works emerged in the mid-1970s, during his time at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, an institution that provided technology and resources to artists working at the forefront of photographic experimentation, particularly with Xerox.

Desire is often associated with romance or sex. In the case of Colby’s work, she writes of the importance of her early meeting with the renowned diarist Anaïs Nin, evidenced in her Textile Erotica drawing series of nude women and a portrait of male genitalia stitched on handkerchiefs with loose threads dangling, threads of unmet desire. As Colby explains, “I’d do these figure drawings which, because they were on handkerchiefs, seemed very lewd—it was almost too personal.” These stand alone as delicate, humorous plays on a certain type of expected femininity. But Colby also transformed them further with xerox, “I would take them to the color Xerox machine and it would faithfully record all that wonderful texture: threads hanging, and sensuous materials were always part of my work.” Bound in spiral books, these color copies became the related artist’s book series. Here, the layering of fabric frozen on the page weaves an erotic narrative, as the figures and fabrics blend with each other from page to page, with pieces of fabric and flowers added to the xerox prints to create a more material experience.

Though his visuals are full of erotic references, Smith expresses more chaste desires of unrequited loves. In the postcard, Face of Facing Rejection, July 1972 (1972), Smith writes the title in small script across the top of the card. It features a stitched border that frames the softly colored pastel drawing of lips and ears, but where the eye and nose should be, instead appears a male figure, crouched over in sadness. At the bottom is a photograph of another man getting into a vehicle, presumably to depart and reject the artist’s love. In the postcard On of my last sewn pieces, 28 Aug (1974), Smith’s title is scrawled in large script across the front of a black-and-white portrait photograph, with a character from a classic valentine holding a heart collaged atop, the whole card covered in swirling stitches. It reads like a heartbroken valentine, letting go of sewing perhaps as the artist mourns another lost desire.

Both artists actively participate in the mail art network, evidencing a desire for connection. Colby has transformed her photographs into stamps, in addition to making use of correspondence as a genre. A fabric work dedicated to her mother adds an address and takes the form of a mailing, while her collage photograph series, Brownie B&W Snapshots, each a 3.5 x 5-inch photograph with stitched additions, feel like intimate tokens that could be tucked into an envelope. Picnic/Paris (1983) includes a grid of Colby’s photostamps and scraps of an address against the background of a sketchy nude, echoed by the lone self-portrait photo stamps featuring the artist’s bare chest and the balloon fragment in the top right arranged to suggest a breast. Smith’s Postcard: 2:57 PM; 18 March (1973) is similarly laced with sexual desire. The foreground features a black-and-white photograph of a windowsill filled with various seashells and a 1965 self-portrait of Smith in the back corner. Smith explains in annotations on the verso, “I drew Aatis and I floating outside the 4th story window.” The only color in the central image is the two male nude torsos, floating together intertwined as though underwater. This romantic and sensual tableau is framed by the plain postcard paper with Smith’s machine stitched border. The artists display a yearning for connection, both physical and emotional.

The stitch becomes a manifestation of Colby and Smith’s shifting desires. Each layered work a means to making connection.

- Megan N. Liberty


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