Ruth Mountaingrove was a songwriter, musician and composer, artist and photographer, editor and publisher of WomanSpirit Magazine and The Blatant Image Magazine of Feminist Photography. She was also a playwright, Humboldt State University radio show producer, tech teacher, multimedia performer, and above all, a lifelong poet. Here are poems collected from friends, family and the University of Oregon archives, along with prints, photographs and art pieces. Ruth was a passionate lesbian feminist, and a very creative artist and writer who passed away in 2016 in Arcata, California at the age of 93. With a generous grant from the Ink People in Arcata, California, this collection is our tribute to her as an outstanding maverick working for women's rights, equality and freedom in all things through art, music and writing.
Ruth Mountaingrove (1923-2016) was a feminist lesbian, poet and writer, publisher and photographer who lived and worked with many of the intentional communities of Southern Oregon before moving to Arcata, California where she took on two more degrees and was a very active member of the community. Mountaingrove published poetry, articles, photographs and feminist/lesbian magazines. Her work archived at the University of Oregon contains correspondence, diaries, manuscripts, music, publishing material and photographs. Her early photographs captured a wide variety of subjects, moods and activities through ceremonies, rituals and daily life inside the intentional communities of Oregon and later became artistic abstracts and experiments with light and dark.
"Black Silk" compiler and poet Vincent "Vinnie" Peloso earned a B.Ed. and M.Ed. from the University of Massachusetts before relocating to California. He retired from a tenured faculty position teaching Reading and General Studies at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California in 2016. Vinnie wanted to form a poetry group in Arcata in 1993, and Ruth Mountaingrove was the first to say yes. And from that time until shortly before she died in 2016, he and Ruth would meet every two or three weeks to workshop each other's verse.
Editor Sue Hilton was raised in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and has spent her working life in forests and creeks, mostly in Northern California. During the rest of her time, she has worked against war and for women, queers, and the planet. She lives in Arcata, California, where she is the editor of "The L-Word", a Humboldt County monthly lesbian/queer newsletter, now in its 37th year.
