just a reminder to all the speakers at tee’s memorial: if you send it to me in an email, i will post it to the blog. let tee’s farflung admirers get a feel for what it was like.

and yes, i’ll be posting mine. later.

Tee Corinne was a spectacular 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 achievements — 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 completely comprehended the importance of her photographs, especially for lesbians and ultimately for the larger society. Pictures of lesbians with disabilities and fat lesbians were the first of their kind, and Tee brought an elegant, ground-breaking dignity to sexual imagery. The “Sinister Wisdom” poster of two women making love is, simply, an immortal work of art, both lovely and iconic, whose presence in lesbian homes is guaranteed. It was the first artwork I had professionally framed. Tee’s circle of admirers has preserved and distributed her images worldwide.

“Dream food” was a favorite 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 lesbians, 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, frolicking, 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 interest and support, I branched out from fiction while the fiction tumbled out of me at exhausting speeds.

Ours was a furiously creative household. We were always working. This column was born at the dinner table we shared in those years. While I was churning out stories, Tee was turning from working exclusively in black and white photography and drawings to painting in color and then using the colors to work out her demons, to explore her difficult childhood and difficult family. While she painted large portraits of lesbians important to our culture like Carol 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 encouraged to talk about her own. Many sat for Tee’s passionate camera — I remember Marilyn 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 linchpins of lesbian culture in her living room or on location. We would not have images of lesbian literary historian Jeannette Foster or the late Valerie Taylor without the fervor for archiving that took Tee to Jeannette’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 Studies Conference or the College Art Association, her seductive charm made her an ambassador of lesbian and women’s art, beguiling academicians and other mainstream dignitaries with her belief in her own and other lesbians’ art. A femme who could pass, Tee never did, and by being out, she legitimized the creative work of all lesbians and sometimes got us a seat at the table.

Of course, I, devoted to lesbian culture, fell in love with this woman I saw as its personification, 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 similar 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 morning — 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, frolicking barefoot in the clouds.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2006

The Amazon Trail September 2006

Miss Tee

My initial path with Tee began as so many of us when faced with her unbridled bravado and creative genius. Her sensual exhibits uncovered beauty in the life where I was hiding in the early 80’s.

A couple of decades later I joined her writing class at her invitation when I was hitting at brick wall in confidence and she was in need of support during Beverly’s dying process. We shared many late night talks and both enjoyed the quality of the new trusted friendship that was evolving.

After being gone for three months last winter, I first saw her in the hospital. Through the golden glow of her skin, I saw her exude warmth towards her gathering community, her pervasive and persistent focus on teaching, and I heard her genuine desire to live her dying openly. It’s no surprise that our sensual lesbian pied piper would continue to face the new issue thrust into her awareness with the same bold honesty in which she had faced life.

I also became more in tune with her fears and gradually touched on ways to walk into them with her. A couple days before she died, I thanked her for letting me in. As always she returned that gratitude by thanking me for being willing to come in.

She was a mentor for generosity with her appreciation, love and material life. She often interrupted canasta games to thank everyone at the table just for being there.

There had been times that she began to fear that the community was wearing down. And there were times we were tired or had to be elsewhere, but there was never a fleeting moment of diminished loving juices cascading from Poppy Seed when I arrived to yet another incredible woman and sometimes two, cooking a luscious meal. Their hugs, joy and caring concern followed Tee’s delight at everyone’s arrival. There was seldom an evening when she didn’t have me sit down to tell her about my day. Poor Dear heard lots about my grand kids.

Genuine delight seemed to explode out of her even from an apparent deep sleep whenever the phone would ring or door would open. It was a gift to me to absorb her enthusiasm for so many and varied friends and students. She was artful at seeing the best in everyone. She also knew that turning her irritations into understanding was best for her health and for the community. I know she died feeling at peace in the flowing matrix of her complex life.

As her active time diminished she was a quick study on grasping the essence of her final project—to be guilt free about resting quietly by just being. During her last weeks, she would beam with the ease of comfort in gazing out the window.

I roughly estimated that I played well over a hundred games of canasta with her. She was amazingly transfixed in another world while contemplating the cards, listening to us sing show tunes and engaging in the remarkably divergent topics at the table. There were times during discussions about her prognosis, when she would abruptly end it with ‘let’s play canasta’. Most everyone knew it was her most endearing and effective distraction.

I watched her struggle to stay upright on several evenings to finish a game. And often the kick she’d get out of a good play made by either team or especially drawing the fourth red three would propel her on to ask to play one more hand. During her last hospital stay, I was sitting beside her bed. She appeared to be in a deep sleep, when her right hand suddenly rose directly up towards the ceiling and with the flick of her wrist she said, ‘red three’. She took a couple more quiet breaths, opened her eyes, looked at me and said ‘wasn’t that amazing!’ as we both laughed.

I loved Tee for the human being that she was to me. Her flaws and fears, which I believe drove her to teach others creative outlets, her privacy, humor, devotion, courage, determination and even her proper manner that must have been a bit of a contradiction for her as the sign above her door read: Well behaved women rarely make history.

She thrived on the community that surrounded her with love. I felt the overflow of compassionate willingness and will always be touched by the beautiful connections being here in her life has offered me.

She made an impression on my family as well. My granddaughter was with me when I took something to Tee in the hospital. Kiana stayed in the lounge area at the end of the hall. Tee asked if she could go meet Kiana. Tee and Tangren had an encounter with her while I went back to Tee’s room. My impression was that my shy grand daughter had not made much of a connection. But that afternoon, when she and I picked up my grandson, Kiana greeted him enthusiastically with, ‘I got to meet Tee.’ In his routine cadence Bryson interrupted with a blast of the experience of his day. Kiana waited for a break to finish her remarks with a tender response, ‘she was nice.’

The day before she died, I asked Tee if she would be okay with me hanging out at Poppy seed to be present for her needs after she died. She smiled and softly said, ‘I’d like that.’ Here today I know we all come with varying beliefs. I’d like to ask us all to continue giving attention in our own way to directing her on. She often stated she hoped she’d come back with similar talents and skills in her next life. That would be a special fortune to wish for her.

Her last statement before she closed her eyes and became quiet was ‘It’s ALL been so wonderful.’ And none of us will forget that because it was.

Yeah, Tee was nice all right, and it was even more than wonderful for me.

a beautiful day, the same sad building we’ve used three times in the last eleven months, standing-room only. the organizing committee (charlotte hutt, chair) did an outstanding job.

if the speakers will send me their eulogies, i’ll post them here.

As executive director of Friends of the Urban Forest, I would like to let you know that a Tree Tribute has been made in loving memory of Tee A. Corinne, from Jim Van Buskirk.

Please accept my sincere condolences.

Kelly Quirke
Executive Director
Friends of the Urban Forest
www.fuf.net

faithful blog. i think we’ve all grown fond of it, over the months.

so, here’s a reminder: if you’d like to donate to the university of oregon so they can do all the magic that will likely need done to tee’s several truckloads of papers and artifacts, make checks payable to UO Foundation/Libraries, with “In memory of Tee Corinne” in the memo line, and mail to the Library Development Office, 1299 University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1299.

or, if you’d like to increase the size of The Tee A. Corinne Prize for Lesbian Artists (JEB is expecting some strong applications, and might even award more than one), send a tax-deductible check to Moonforce Media, PO Box 13375, Silver Spring, MD 20911, with “Tee Corinne prize” in the memo line.

i’m sure we all still want to do something. these are somethings many of us can still do.

Judith and I were stunned today to learn of Tee’s death. We didn’t even know she had been ill. Tee was one of those women we counted on to be there, doing her work, being her extraordinary self, but we weren’t in touch that often. We’d known her for several decades.

We’d like to coordinate contributions for a stone at Soapstone in her name. Probably you know about Soapstone, a nonprofit writers’ retreat for women in Oregon’s Coast Range. Judith and I have both been involved with it for many years. (www.soapstone.org). The Stones for Soapstone page explains the memorial and other stones: http://www.soapstone.org/support_pages/stones_for_soapstone.html.

These stones, and the written material about the woman named (kept in a book at the retreat) are a profound inspiration to the women writers who come there to write and we think would be a fitting memorial–one of them–to Tee

It takes $1000 in contributions. We, of course, would contribute. We’d like to be in touch with others who might want to join in this. Is there some way this could be posted on the blog?

Ruth Gundle & Judith Barrington
retreats@soapstone.org

Soapstone, A Writing Retreat for Women
622 SE 29th Avenue
Portland, OR 97214
503/233-3936
http://www.soapstone.org
retreats@soapstone.org

(jesse read this to tee at the party last saturday.)

An Apple for the Teacher

Tee A. Corinne is many things. First and foremost she is an artist. Successful, a leader in her chosen field, she is also a writer, a Canasta Maven, a pillar of several communities and a Teacher.

Tee is dying. Her body is fighting cruel cancerous tumors that leave her a bit weaker each day. But her appetite for life, and the living of it has remained very strong, and has added a glow that surrounds her in a mantle of light that is almost startling to me. Her bearing is regal, her intelligence and love shine in her eyes. She adores being with her many friends and conversing. A power napper, she has good days and bad days, but her caring, thoughtfulness and impeccable manners still rule. A true southern lady.

I believe she takes care and pleasure in choosing each player to participate in her canasta soirees. I think she enjoys inviting people to play in a particular game that she thinks might pursue a relationship that may develop. She is a weaver of webs.

I don’t know what follows death; I don’t believe that anything does really. It seems to me that if there really were a kindly, omnipotent being in charge of everything, he/she would have given the cancer to Osama Bin Laden rather than our dear, sweet Tee.

I can’t give Tee a magic pill to right her health. But I can and do give Tee my admiration, my respect and my love.

tangren alexander sent me a bunch of pictures she and tina freimuth took the day before tee died. they’re here.

i know this has been a source of confusion for the last six months. the minute tee introduced me to jeanne in march, i just shook my head and said “it can’t be helped.”

jeanne simington (pronounced gee-knee sigh-ming-tun) is, in my humble opinion, a quacking saint. she has handled all tee’s financial matters for at least six months, on top of a million other things. hardly a day went by that she didn’t come by poppyseed for at least a brief visit. she collected mail, chauffeured to doctor appointments, battled social security to the death to get tee some benefits, and in her spare time did more than her share of dishes. plus, she’s a swell cook. at the same time, her husband george has been battling cancer. his is the treatable kind, but jeanne is absolutely worn to a nubbin.

i’d suggest that we all take some of that light we’ve grown so expert at directing, and fill her up. she’s plumb tuckered out, and everybody who loved tee owes jeanne a debt of gratitude.

as for the jean: that would be the one who writes and signs the blog entries. alert readers will have noticed a touch of multiplicity, considering that the dragon has her own way of doing things.

thus endeth our primer. perhaps i should have done this earlier, but there were always more important things to report.