Fabled Asp: A Catalyst for Change

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Supporting the Next Generation of Activism and Creative Projects

The mission of Fabled Asp is to empower disabled lesbians of diverse racial, cultural and age backgrounds to express stories, challenges, accomplishments and lessons of the movement. From the beginning, we knew we wanted to work with artists. Some projects we commissioned, some we co-created, co-sponsored, mentored or helped produce. We have supported many projects in collaboration with renowned artists. They also serve as examples of what can be done when artists relate to the original materials.

We want to encourage interaction with the archives not only by scholars but also by artists of every persuasion.

Like the aspen for whom we are named, we will continue to send up shoots and enlarge our grove of activist disabled lesbians and allies throughout the world for years to come.

Click here to download a list of our collections and topics pdf.

You too can access our archives as inspiration for future artistic projects!

To access our archives, please contact Fabled Asp.

 

The Lineage Project: Art and Mixed Media

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Created in partnership with E. G. Crichton, the artist-in-residence of San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society, this specific project involves pairing a living person with a deceased one, asking the living one to spend time with the archive and create a response to it in any medium. The artist’s goal is to foster relationships between the living and the dead through a collaborative process with the artist, the archive, and the person who agrees to respond. Our participation in this larger project was unique insofar as E.G. Crichton specifically chose to pair lesbian disabled activists with the archives of deceased lesbian disabled activists:

 

 

Dominika Bednarska & Diane “Hugs” Hugaert (1955–2001)
www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Lineage/Bednarska.html

Nomy Lamm & Silvia Kohan (1948­–2003)
www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Lineage/Lamm2.html

Elissa Perry & Pat Parker (1944–1989)
www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Lineage/Perry2.html

Laura Rifkin & Jessica Barshay (1940–1998)
www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Lineage/Rifkin2.html

Note: Jessica Barshay is also the subject of a digital story and forthcoming film created by her partner, Judith Masur.

 

Remembering Our Roots: The Memorial Quilt Project

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To honor Bay Area lesbians with disabilities who have joined the ancestors in the past 20 years, renowned African-American quilt-maker Karen Hampton has created a memorial quilt. Karen stitched and burned the images, names and words of a dozen of these women into a multi-layered tribute on hand-dyed fabric. Grounded in the African American story quilt tradition, Karen’s use of materials and symbols reflects the diaphanous, complex lives of disabled lesbians.

“We are both bold and hidden. These twelve women built community, among their friends, in the Bay Area, and throughout the US and beyond. They began and sustained resources for lesbians, feminists, people with disabilities. Active in their Native American, Jewish, Arab and African American communities, they wrote, sang and made visual art. Their political activism included membership in the Black Panthers, starting Ms. Magazine, founding the Women’s Cancer Resource Center to running for City Council (and so much more) – as out dykes. Filled with difficulty and delight, their lives were too short. Brilliant, confrontational, joyful and sexy, these women were warriors and peacemakers. The memorial quilt is a manifestation of literal and symbolic ways they touch those of their many communities who carry their legacies forward. Through text and texture, material and design, the quilt reflects the endurance of love, the deepening of roots, the whisper of their voices in this re-memory.”
—Barbara Ruth, resident poet of Fabled Asp

 

Women of the Quilt:

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Click here to download a pdf of the Fabled Asp Memorial Quilt
and to read more about these women.

 

“Sending up shoots” and supporting new creative works: Digital Stories

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Several projects that were initially begun under the auspices of Fabled Asp have continued to develop and evolve. Two such projects grew out of our collaboration with the Center for Digital Storytelling, where we co-hosted workshops for disabled lesbians to create 3-minute personal movies combining storytelling technique with one’s own photos, video or music.

 

Morningstar Vancil

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Morningstar Vancil, a member of the Fabled Asp Core Group, had her digital story “Wild Strawberries” featured in the 2010 “6th Annual Queer Women of Color Film Festival” (a project of QWOCMAP: the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project). This was the first ever closed-captioned film to be submitted to the festival.

 

Judith Masur

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Dominika Bednarska

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In “My Body Love Story,” Queer disabled femme Dominika Bednarska takes us through dance floors, shopping malls, and theaters to tell the story of how she learned to love her body. Dominika is a writer, solo performer, poet and academic living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received mentoring from Fabled Asp, and was also invited to participate in the Lineage art project facilitated by E.G. Crichton. “My Body Love Story” is her first play, and was developed with the support of the AIRspace residency program.

“As a young queer woman, it has been amazing being involved with Fabled Asp. I have found a tremendous sense of community, history and support for the importance of the visibility of disabled lesbians.”–Dominika Bednarska, 29