Jess McVeyJess McVey is an environmental artist and activist who has shared her creativity and principles with the Bay Area for decades. This tribute to McVey honors her lifelong commitment to social justice, peace, equality, and respect & responsibility to the air, the land, the seas, and all their creatures. In her nineties, McVey still works and demonstrates for the causes she supports. After raising a large family, McVey joined the lesbian community, developed women’s land, traveled the world, helped create the first AIDS volunteer task force, and developed her creativity. Her sculpture and painting have been widely shown and admired in art, women’s, and lesbian venues. McVey is included in Damn Fine Art: Lesbian Artists by Cherry Smyth, the documentary West Coast Crones by Madeline Muir, the New Leaf exhibit Depth & Distance II, and Sinister Wisdom: A Journal by and for Lesbians edited by Fran Day. With her art and her words, McVey works to educate everyone she encounters near and far – family, friends, bystanders, and policymakers – on the use of alternative energies and life-preserving solutions for protecting local and global resources. She continues to use every life experience – even her stroke and Parkinson’s disease – to share with others what she learns. Jess is devotedly involved with her large family of children, grandchildren, and their partners. She shows great strength and resilience in dealing with life’s challenges – the passing of friends and loved ones, the loss of original art to a home fire, and the health challenges of advanced age. McVey loves to be in nature – to camp and feed a roaring fire on the beach, whether for her raku pottery, a picnic, or sheer joy. She nurtures gardens wherever she lives, shares the produce, and teaches organic sustainability. An inveterate student, McVey not only feeds her enormous curiosity, but shares the knowledge she gains from numerous courses and round-the-world educational tours. For her book group, she insists on work by a broadly diverse selection of writing by women from around the world. McVey shows her wide circle of close friends, lovers, art colleagues, and family how to live with spirit and spine through changing times, changing lives, changing abilities, and enduring connections. Friends, family, and members of OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change) embrace Jess McVey with pride to call her one of our own and offer this brief tribute in love, respect, and admiration for her great contributions to our community and our individual lives. In Jess McVey’s name and paraphrasing her words:
Honored by Friends, family, and members of OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change) |
