22 out in the mountains l OCTOBER 2006 I MOUNTA|NPRlDEMED|A.ORG Inthe IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS lull ishere! Everyone involved with Out in the Mountains contributes something wonderful each month, and it is the volunteers on Stuffing Night and those that deliver OITM that physically get the paper out to all of our readers. Our volunteers that help in this important monthly tradition make the deadlines and crunching here at the paper all worthwhile. I Volunteers ‘come to the R.U.1.2? Center on the last Wednesday of the month, with smiles and a willingness to get their hands dirty for an hour or two. Many volunteers are here every month. So_ from the bottom of our hearts, please accept our thanks and gratitude for being there with and for us all. Your contribution is priceless! We thank the following volunteers who, in addition to our writers’ efforts, worked on last month's paper: The AIDS Project of Southern Vermont, Thia Artemis, Euan Bear, Rick Bersaw, Tom Bivins, Daryl & Dennis DePau|, Kathy Donna, Thom Fleury, Danny Gates, Keith Goslant, Frank Knapp, Bennett Law, Lynn McNicol, Nat Michael, Fran Moravcsik, Fred Pond, The R.U.1.2? Community Center, Vermont Freedom toMarry Task Force, and Rick Wold. We hope no one was overlooked... . S'I'IIF|i|IlG IIIEIII: Ray, Kate Kinney, Kim Howard, Joe Swinyer, Greg Weaver, Liz Fullerton and the lovely, sweet lady (wink) IIFFIIIE Illlllill-IIIIIIIEIIS: Joseph Swinyer & Greg Thompson’ EIIITDIIIIII IISSISTIIIIIE: Tina Giansrande. and Amy. Prem.=Witz_ Iee tnrinne I943-2llllB BY LEE LYNCH ' ee Corinne was a spec- tacular woman. When she died this August 27, I felt as if a giant redwood had been felled. The earth shook with the event’s power, just as Tee shook the lesbian world with her work. I can’t begin to encompass all of her achieve- ments - can any of us? Not the least of them was her selfless ability to encourage others, whatever our passions, and to share what she knew, to teach. I'm not sure even she com- pletely comprehended the importance of her photographs, especially for lesbians, and ulti- mately for the larger society. Pic- tures of lesbians with disabilities and fat lesbians were the first of their kind, and Tee brought an elegant, groundbreaking dignity to sexual imagery. The “Sinister Wisdom” poster of two women making love is, simply, an im- ' mortal work of art, both lovely and iconic, whose presence in lesbian homes is guaranteed. It was the first artwork I had pro- fessiomally framed. Tee’s circle of admirers has preserved and distributed her images World- wide. “Dream food” was a favor- ite expression, and she fed dreams to us all. What Tee did with her art, her writing, her life and her charismatic networking was to empower us. By us, I mean not just les- bians, but everyone else she touched too: her art students, her old friends, her neighbors, the people who made prints of her work and the guy who built her garage. I know this because I had the good fortune to be close to Tee for a while. I remember a trip to Crater Lake with our then lovers. Snow lined the road higher than our cars. Tee slipped off her socks and Birkenstocks, leapt from the car, and laughing, frolick- ing, ran barefoot up a snow mound. Then, of course, we took pictures. Those were some of the most productive years of my life thus far. Not that anything >.\\. _ could stop me from writing stories of lesbian lives, but in Tee's presence, with her inter- est and support, I branched out from fiction while the fiction tumbled out of me at exhaust- ing speeds._ Ours was a furiously creative household. We were always working. This column was born at the din- ner table we shared in those ‘ culture, like Carol years. While I was churning out stories, Tee was turning from working exclusively in black- and-white photography and drawings to paint- ing in color and then using the colors to work out her demons, to explore her difficult child- hood and difficult family. While she painted large por- traits of lesbians important to our Seajay, she never stopped taking photographs. At every conference or .visit, she would recruit lesbian writers in particular to join her gallery. Every guest was treated to a tour of her work and encour- aged to talk about her own. Many sat for Tee's passionate camera - I remember Mari- lyn Frye, Anna Livia, Elana Dykewoman, Barbara Grier, Sarah Schulman. Sometimes it seemed that all of lesbian nation passed through. Tee certainly knew them all. She immortalized the 1inch- pins of lesbian culture in her living room or on location. We would not have images of lesbian literary historian Jean- nette Foster or the late Valerie Taylor without the fervor for archiving that took Tee to Jean- nette’s nursing home and to Valerie’s tiny house in Tucson. She crafted a treasure trove of lesbian portraits, and whatever else she is remembered for, Tee-will be well-represented in the first National Lesbian Museum, partly for her art, but ‘also because she led us to understand that what we were doing was important, that we were important, that our work had value. Art wasn’t the whole of it. I remember meeting Tee at Deb Edel and Joan Nestle’s Upper West Side apartment, where the Lesbian Herstory Archives was then housed. Philosopher Sarah Hoagland joined Tee for a discussion of lesbian culture, an event that even then I knew was significant. Tee thought a lot about what lesbians had done and could do. She created a theater of possibility in which generations have since acted. She opened up the vocabulary of women’s bodies and desire. Whether at a Women's Stud- ies Conference or the College Art Association, her seductive charm made her an ambassa- dor of lesbian and women’s art, beguiling academicians and other mainstream dignitaries with her belief in her own and other lesbians’ art. A femme NNVVlili3J3d"3NNVSnS -Aa—..i.Iva.Laoa i.sv1.. who could pass, Tee never did, ' and by being out, she legiti- mized the creative work of all lesbians, and sometimes got us a seat at the table. Of course, I, devoted to les- bian culture, fell in love with this woman I saw as its per- sonification, although she was much more than that. When she asked me to marry her and we had our bonding ceremony, we thought We were a match made in heaven with our simi- lar agendas and creative drives. But love, for the exuberant Tee, was a continuum: her lovers and friends, her subjects, art, writing, music, her dogs and cats, her land, every new mom- ing - Tee celebrated it all. I can only hope that now she is in some sort of hereafter made of the love, beauty and physical delights she embodied, frolick- ing barefoot in the clouds.V in lieu of flowers, contributiohs in Tee's name should be made payable to UO Foundation/Libraries, with ’‘In memory of Tee Corinne" in the memo line, and should be mailed to the Library Development Office, 1299 University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1299. a Copyright Lee Lynch 2006. .1 Lee Lynch has been a frequent contributor to Out in the Mountains. She lives on the Oregon coast.