THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Ivy Bottini
August 15, 1926 – February 25, 2021
“Get out of your own way and understand that your life has a life of its own and will take you on a wonderful, adventurous ride.”
Activist, Artist, Comedian. Co-founder of New York NOW (1966), President (1968-1970). Led the takeover of the Statue of Liberty (1970). Created the NOW National Logo. Co-Founded AIDS Network LA. Created and hosted the first Lesbian/Gay radio show on a mainstream network. Southern California Deputy Director of the successful campaign against the initiative that would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching in California public schools. Appointed by Governor Jerry Brown as a Commissioner for the first California Commission on Aging. Chaired the successful “No on 64,” a proposition to stigmatize people who were HIV-positive. Co-Founded the Gay & Lesbian Elder Housing non-profit which developed Triangle Square in 2007, the first affordable housing complex for gay and lesbian senior citizens in the country. Joined California Women’s Law Center in drafting and lobbying a bill to remove the statute of limitations on prosecuting rape cases. Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill.
Filmed and interviewed by Martha Wheelock, VFA Board, August 2017
Photo 1. Ivy designed the logo for the National Organization for Women in 1969. Photo 2. Ivy Bottini in 2011 with her art on the wall of her Kings Road condominium. Her “I Am” painting was used on a t-shirt for the annual Dyke March that year [photo by James F. Mills]. Photo 3. The Liberation of Ivy Bottini: A Memoir of Love and Activism, by Judith Branzburg, November 2018.
More About Ivy:
- Ivy Bottini obituary
- Remembering Ivy Bottini Losangelesblade.com, Volume 05, Issue 10, March 05, 2021
- Select interviews
- The Liberation of Ivy Bottini, A conversation between feminist, LGBTQ activist, and West Hollywood icon Ivy Bottini and her biographer Judith V. Branzburg. Jan 16, 2019
- Woman of Courage Award, Ivy Bottini, Hollywood Chapter of NOW July 15, 2018
- EndRapeSOL Activist-Artists Ivy Bottini (founder) & Lili Bernard (Cosby Survivor) Interviewed live on KPFK Radio 90.7 FM by Feminist Magazine,March 15, 2016
- It Gets Better Project in partnership with ONE Archives Foundation, 2015
- THE LAVENDER EFFECT®
- Select Artwork of Ivy Bottini
- Veteran Feminists of America Fabulous Feminist
- Select Performances and Filmography
- inclusIVitY play tells the story of activist Ivy Bottini, by Ryah Cooley, August 17, 2017
- Ivy Bottini performing “My Angry Vagina” at Hollywood NOW’s production of The Vagina Monologues on Saturday, February 11, 2017
- The Advocate Celebrates 50 Years: A Long Road to Freedom (Documentary) 2018
- L.A.: A Queer History (Documentary short) 2018
- Chained! (Documentary short) 2010
- In the Life: Aging in a Safe Environment (TV Series) 2009
- On These Shoulders We Stand (Documentary) 2009
- Ten More Good Years (Documentary) 2007
- Before Stonewall (Documentary) 1984
- Ivy Bottini papers, Coll2009-005, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.
- The Ivy Theatre papers, founded in 1998 in honor of veteran lesbian feminist activist and performer Ivy Bottini, as the first and only lesbian-focused theatre company in Los Angeles, California.
- Cited in Barbara Love’s book, Feminists Who Changed America, page 51