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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 1990)
Donna Russell Red Wing THE ULTIMATE HIDEAWAY FO R FRIENDS A N D LOVERS Visibility in the community is going to be a real challenge . Enlarging and expanding what we can offer to people . For me, the challenge is to understand not only the project but the community. for. It was meant to be. “New England is changing. The pace is elcome to Lesbian Community Project much faster. The cost of living is tremendous. headquarters, where the phone rings For working-class people, Massachusetts has several times an hour and a copy machine the just become unlivable. Portland is clean and size o f a Volkswagon is chewing up the paper wonderful and has fountains everywhere. It’s and spitting it out. Creased sheets o f the a friendly, really positive place. January newsletter, copy machine casualties, "The job is a combination of the things fill a trash can. In other parts o f the spacious that I do best. I also believed in the work of Union Station office sit dozens o f files, LCP. It’s a pro-active organization; it’s an membership lists and pledges, the blank eye o f organization that’s out there. I don’t think an the AT& T computer. LCP could survive in my home town. To Fmd that here is really exciting. It's comfortable — for me, for my lifestyle — to work primarily with women, to work primarily with dykes. "I do know that after all of the welcomes and the excitement, there’s some real hard work to do. Fundraising, being out there in Donna Russell Red Wing glances around the community, is critical. I think that we the room, grins like a moon on its way to fu ll have to take an active role in legislative work. and says she feels giddy. In her first days as I think that when we have a civil rights bill executive director o f P ortland's Lesbian that protects us, we can do other work much Community Project, she has pored through more easily and without fear. So for me, mail and files, figured out how to answer that’s really high on my priority list. about h a lf o f the phone callers’ questions and "In the three days I’ve been here. I ’ve arrived home each day happily saturated with probably had 20 calls from new women in her new responsibilities. town, or women who are just out, who need Red Wing, A New England native, talks a resources, who need to connect, who need a fa st and effusive stream, a Boston accent hotline number, who just want to come by and propping her A ’s open wide. She wears a see what it’s all about. labrys in her right ear, a bright sca rf swooped “So visibility is important; I think around the neck o f a black sweater and blue legislative work is important. I think that this jeans, a welcome change from the power suits organization exists and is accessible to all her last job required. lesbians is important. In a city like Worcester, She talks excitedly about the N orthw est’s certainly there are support services, but there stunning landscape, the house she and her is no place folks can come anytime they want partner managed to fin d in less than fiv e and meet other folks or sit around and read or hours, the New Year’s Eve party at the Echo talk. The fact that LCP exists is the most Theater, the Lesbian Community Project important piece of it all. itself, unthinkable in her form er “What else can we do — I don’t know yet. M assachusetts town. I don’t know what the needs of women in She looks past the office clutter to the high Portland are and how we can meet those windows, where trains chug in and out. It’s a needs. I think some of the social events — typical January day, deep gray clouds battling the New Year’s Eve dance, the formal this a pale sun. A Portland native might not see spring — are great stuff. I think many of us spent too many years being terribly serious anything remarkable. But to Red Wing, it is all new; every piece a challenge. about everything. We have to not forget to have fun, not forget to enjoy ourselves. “Before this, I was the director of a child “I think work like the Groucho Marx poster [part of the Margins to the Mainstream abuse prevention program in Worcester, Project], while I know there’s some Massachusetts, about 40 miles west of Boston. controversy around that, that’s important As a prevention program, we primarily work. I think we can do it better and bigger worked with children from two-and-a-half to again. 18, teaching them how to protect themselves. “My first reaction [to the Groucho Marx “It’s the kind of work that is important to ad] was that I thought it was astounding. That do, but I think you can give so much of wouldn’t have happened back home. I yourself and then you have to pull back. brought some back with me and folks couldn’t Because there’s no more to give. I think the believe that this organization and these work here is important, but it’s much more women had the courage to do this. I do upbeat. understand that some people have perceived it “For 20 years Portland has been my as middle-class, white-toast kind of stuff. But favorite city. While I was last visiting here, I back home, one of the first comments I got thought, ‘Gosh, I ’d love to live here.’ And I was, ‘Look at the diversity.’ thought: why not? My son is a young adult; “Maybe Portland is more out than he’s on the road with his band, so as a mother Worcester is. Maybe people do perceive that I didn’t need to be there every day. project in a different light But back home “When I got home my partner and I people were so excited and really applauded decided to get The Oregonian. The first issue the project. I think we have to remember that we got advertised this job. I thought: this is the first effort of this kind. This fundraising, special events, legislative work campaign was palatable to middle-class — all the stuff I do, all in one job. This is America, and that may be a criticism. On the wonderful. It was the only job I looked at, the other hand, middle-class America may be able only job I wanted and the only job I applied BY A N N D E E H O C H M A N W (fj/axljo Ü nn to say the L word for the first time. It was done with a very gentle kind of humor. And I think we need that. “Fundraising is always, always a challenge. My fundraising experiences have been for the arts and for abused kids. It’s not hard to raise money for the arts. When you deal with issues like incest, abuse and assault, it’s a little more difficult. When you’re raising money for the Lesbian Community Project, you’re going to be pushing a lot of buttons. The challenge will be to identify funding sources and raise the money that will allow us to do the work we want to do. “I do think that visibility in the community is going to be a real challenge. Enlarging and expanding what we can offer to people. For me, the challenge is to understand not only the project, but the community. To be out there, to meet people, to find out what people want. “I’ve probably had 50 calls welcoming me to the community. I ’ve been able to talk to folks and get a sense of their understanding of LCP. And then there are the nuts and bolts — the computer, the xerox machine. It’s been a very full two-and-a-half days. “I think it’s going to be a learning process. It’s exciting. It’s certainly not boring. It’s certainly not routine. I ’m not just cloistered away at my desk five days a week. W e’ve been going to Café Mocha, going to A Woman’s Place Bookstore and just bopping around town in the evening, just trying to get a sense of the community. “I’m a painter. For about 20 years I’ve done collage work — very large abstract work. In the last year, my partner and I have formed a company called Red Wing Creations. We do lesbian erotica on clothing, cards, books. It’s wonderful. It allows both o f us to work together on a project that we find very exciting. “That’s what we do to kind of de- accelerate and relax. We have two dogs who take up a lot of our time. And we are very outdoorsy kinds of folks. We can’t wait to get out in the mountains. Here, the landscape is so dramatic. When we crossed from California to Oregon, I almost had a stroke. So we want to go to some old-growth forests, and to the ocean. I think that’s what our weekends will be. “I ’ve been in New England almost 40 years. My son is there, but his band is going to do a cross-country tour, so I’ll see him in the spring and perhaps the summer. There are people I ’ll miss terribly, but there are planes and trains and telephones. I think for the first time in our lives, my partner and I have decided to live exactly as we choose and that includes being here in Portland. That includes working in a position like this. That includes making some breaks. But I think they’re healthy breaks.” ▼ PALM SPRINGS LUXURY WEEKEND Includes round trip air - 3 nights at Le Garbo Inn (former estate of Greta Garbo) and 3 days com pact car. From $525 PPDO. M E X I C O SUN B R EA K PUERTO VALLARTA Round trip air - 5 nights at the Tropicana Hotel, airport transfers. $459 PPDO. MAZATLAN Round trip air - 5 nights at the Costo De Oro Hotel, airport transfers. $499 PPDO. CABO SAN LUCAS Round trip air - 5 nights at the Solman Hotel, air port transfers, 2 comp lementary dinners. $631 PPDO. Wayne Boulette Travel Counselor VISTA TRAVEL SERVICE 224-5000 200 SW MARKET • PORTLAND, OR TOLL FREE USA P lease and «hank you a re n 't «he only magic words: when su p p o rtin g o u r a d ve rtisers m ention Jus« O ut. 1 800 245-5557 - - FAX: 503-299-6831 just out ▼ f 5 ▼ February 199*