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IVY BOTTINI
August 15, 1926 - Present
Ivy Bottini: Welcome
Ivy Bottini spent her early formative school years illustrating book reports, creating maps for geography class that were works of art, designing posters for school activities and painting for fun. When she became a bit older, she attended The Pratt Institute School of Art in Brooklyn, NY after receiving a full scholarship from 1944 to 1947. While in school, she obtained a certificate in advertising graphic design and illustration. After graduation, Bottini worked in various art & advertising agencies in New York City and then completed a sixteen-year career at Newsday, a popular east coast newspaper, where she assumed the role of art director and illustrator. Bottini left Newsday in 1971 when she moved to California.
The women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s characterized itself as a counterculture phenomenon, occurring simultaneously with the battle for Civil Rights, the protest against the war in Vietnam, the international student upheavals of 1968, and the sexual revolution. As feminism’s ‘second wave’ unfolded, posters, buttons, and bumper stickers, carrying such slogans as ‘Women’s Liberation IS the Revolution’ and ‘Women Are Not Chicks’ became more popular.
The logo of the National Organization for Women (NOW) was designed by graphic artist and popular LGBT activist Ivy Bottini in 1969 and still in use today.
“Even now, in a world of hashtags, if you want to proclaim something to people on the street, you wear a button,” says Lisa Kathleen Graddy, a curator at The National Museum of American History. “You are saying to the person passing you or behind you: This matters enough to me to put on my lapel. You are publicly proclaiming what you are. And although someone might nod and smile at you, if you are upholding a point of view that is not popular, it could also be a risk.”
Ivy Bottini: Text
Ivy talks about growing up and her lifelong dedication to activism in the LGBT community.
Ivy Bottini: Video
After Bottini came out as a lesbian in 1969, she held a public forum titled "Is Lesbianism a Feminist Issue?", which was the first time lesbian concerns were introduced into the National Organization for Women. In 1970, she led a demonstration at the Statue of Liberty where she and others from the National Organization for Women's New York chapter draped an enormous banner over a railing which read "WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE!" During her time at the NOW New York chapter, Bottini also introduced feminist consciousness raising, which was later adapted for all chapters in the organization to participate in.
In 1971, Bottini moved to Los Angeles. There, she founded AIDS Network LA, the first AIDS organization in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Lesbian/Gay Police Advisory Board. In 1977, she created and hosted the first Lesbian/Gay radio show on a mainstream network, KHJ in LA. In 1978, she was the Southern California deputy director of the successful campaign against the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching in California's public schools.
In 1993, she co-founded the nonprofit organization Gay & Lesbian Elder Housing, which eventually developed Triangle Square in 2007, the first affordable housing complex for gay and lesbian senior citizens in the country.
Today, Bottini and The Lavender Effect, an LGBT history organization, are currently advocating for a construction of an LGBT museum in Los Angeles. She is also advocating for the creation of an AIDS memorial in West Hollywood. Bottini now works as a graphic artist, but there is no doubt that she is most well known for her fearless advocacy for women and LGBTQ rights.
Ivy Bottini: Text
IVY'S WORK
Ivy Bottini: Gallery
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