Current Sculpture
This sculpture of Mama Tee is the first in a series of busts of important community members who are BIPOC women, trans, and non-binary folx.
Mama Tee (Thresea) Yost
Mama Tee Yost is a poet, activist, community organizer, trouble maker, artist, mover and shaker chef. She is originally from Texas, and loves roses, particularly yellow ones. She brought together Black artists, musicians and poets in the Olympia area and beyond to create a show at South South Community College called Futures Rising in 2020. That group of artists was represented again in a show in 2022 called Black Love: Community Building Through Mentorship. Mama Tee loves sports, especially football and basketball. She has a large family, is one of eleven sisters, and has four children of her own. She is hilarious. We can’t stop laughing when we’re together. She blames everything naughty on me. Mama Tee is a fearless changemaker, and I am so grateful that she lives and works in our community.
“Writing for me, it’s like, my soul, giving birth to words. Sometimes it brings laughter, sometimes it brings tears, sometimes it brings love. Sometimes it just brings. I find that writing allows me to release what’s deep in my soul. It allows me to release it without being judged. That’s why I write. The wisdom to listen, the knowledge to know, the compassion to feel, the strength to let go. The willingness to give without expecting the same, finding little honor in winning the game. I seek no judgment nor judgment do pass, in present I stand. I am.”
-Mama Tee Yost