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Patricia Field designer turned activist Tim Bailey. Bailey died in 1993.
(Photo: Bill Bytsura) |
Tim Bailey
When Bailey’s blood test came back positive,
he was the menswear designer at Patricia Field, so it made sense that his approach to the illness was wild and vivid. He joined ACT UP early in 1988 and found his activism home in the most notorious of the organization’s affinity groups. The Marys, as they were known, carried out spectacularly bold actions. They simultaneously invaded the on-air newscasts at CBS and PBS, and Bailey, who would die in 1993, even made theater of his own funeral. At first he planned to be burned on a pyre to protest Clinton-administration failures. But he had second thoughts, and asked for an open-air ceremony on Pennsylvania Avenue instead. “Do something formal and aesthetic in front of the White House. I won’t be there anyway. It’ll be for you.” So the remaining Marys drove his corpse to D.C., only to be roughed up by Capitol police and marshaled out of town with a police escort after a three-hour standoff.