Artist and activist Ivy Bottini was named an LGBT History Month Icon by Equality Forum for her contributions to women’s and LGBT equality — but they neglected to mention one of her other accomplishments: being a mother.
In addition to being a prolific artist, Bottini helped Betty Friedan found the first chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and designed its logo, but later left the organization when it wanted lesbian members to stay in the closet.
She later became the women’s program director for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, and was instrumental in organizing successful opposition to the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gay men and lesbians from working in California public schools. She also worked to defeat the state’s Proposition 64, which would have added AIDS to the list of communicable diseases, and formed AIDS Network LA, the first organization in the city created to combat AIDS. Additionally, she cofounded the Los Angeles Lesbian/Gay Police Advisory Board and founded Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing, Inc., which created the country’s first low-income LGBT senior housing project.
As her own website notes, however, she is “an artist, a mother and a legendary activist,” so let’s not forget the second part there. She was married to a man for 16 years, and has two daughters from that relationship, Laura and Lisa, and a grandson.
Last month, on her 88th birthday, she opened a one-woman show about her life. The LA LGBT Center, which hosted the show, is also exhibiting art by both Bottini and by her daughter Lisa Santasiero, the first mother/daughter art exhibit in the Center’s history. WEHOville, which reported on the events, also has a great photo of Bottini and her two daughters, which I can’t display here, but you can pop over to see.
Not that a woman’s motherly abilities should necessarily be lauded over her other accomplishments — but we should recognize what must have been a difficult decision for Bottini: coming out and leaving her husband at a time when “lesbian” and “mother” were not often said in the same sentence.
I can only hope I’m as active as she is when I’m her age.
