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LEE ZEVY, 2019, Graphite, paint and collage on paper, vinyl wallpaper and audio, 72 by 60 inches (Created for Idol Worship curated by Emily Colucci for Smack Mellon in 2019)
I met Lee Zevy during my first round of group supervision when I began volunteering as a peer counselor at Identity House in 2014. Identity House is a volunteer-run mental health advocacy non-profit that has been in operation by and for the LGBTQ community in NYC since 1971. Lee co-founded IHouse with a group of gay and lesbian activists and mental health workers during a time when homosexuality was still listed as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. From her activism in Civil Rights, Women's Rights and the Gay Rights Movement to her pioneering research on LGBTQ sex and identity, Lee has centered her life around opening up space for joy, friendship and growth for those who have lacked it most.
Over the years Lee has not only been a mentor to me but a close friend. She has helped me see meaningful connections between my art practice and my activism, she has listened patiently while I have ranted about my love life, and whether she knows it or not she has provided me with a set of queer life milestones that I aspire every day to achieve. As part of the process towards completing this piece, I spent several days with Lee scanning documents and photographs from her life. The time we spent together (her remembering and sharing and me listening and preserving) felt intimate and sacred: a passing on of coded wisdom, life lessons and herstory from one lesbian to another.
Life milestones as I've learned from Lee probably without her knowing:
prioritize activism and fight for those who have been silenced by oppression
uphold queer community for it is family in more ways than imaginable
create physical and emotional space for healing and human connection
seek in the many partnerships that occur in a lifetime freedom, adventure and kindness
care for animals as you would a human being
forever question your own belief system and learn from younger generations