Script from the burial ceremony provided below.

CLICK HERE TO REQUEST ACCESS TO VIDEO FROM THE DAY’S CEREMONY.
Email madelinemargaretbaker@gmail.com if you have content you would like added to the accessible folder of photos/video.

Sadly, Wendy left this plane due to complications from breast cancer on March 23, 2024. I–Madeline, Wendy’s step daughter–have compiled all the materials from that day here so that those who could not make it there can participate in some way. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to get in touch and I am happy to discuss it with you.

On May 11th, we gathered together to share memories and honor Wendy’s everlasting impact on the Tampa community as well as the numerous other communities she shined her light on. Though there are times this feels like an insurmountable loss, we all have been forever changed for the better by the love and brightness she brought wherever she went.

Let us hold one another in our gratefulness and our grief and celebrate her legacy as one, to remember her in the most reverent way possible ~

In lieu of flowers, consider donating to the following
scholarship in Wendy’s honor:

USF School of Art & Art History
Artist Residency/Exhibition Travel Scholarship
Click here to Donate

More info on fund: The Wendy Babcox Memorial Fund will offer scholarships for undergraduate or graduate students in the School of Art and Art History to support participation in the Anderson Ranch residency workshop, or other residency and exhibition opportunities at the discretion of the director of the School of Art and Art History or their designee based on faculty input. This scholarship is in memory of Wendy Babcox, an exceptionally generous and brilliant Associate Professor in the School of Art and Art History from 2003 to 2024.

To those who kindly donated to the GoFundMe to support the memorial costs–you were more than generous. Thank you so much for helping out. The remainder of those funds (around $2,400) was donated to a fund that supports medical treatment for sick and injured evacuees from Gaza in Cairo, Egypt. In Wendy’s final weeks she really only posted online to support a ceasefire in Palestine and to condemn the actions of our government in its unrelenting support of the ongoing atrocities there by the Israeli government. Please read more about Wendy’s work in the West Bank as part of the 6+ collective here.

BURIAL CEREMONY SPEECH

Given by Lynn Principe, Celebrant of Dearly Beloved

Good morning. My name is Lynn Principe.I’m a life cycle Celebrant. It is an honor to speak about the life and legacy of someone who is so loved and made such an impact on so many. It is my intention that I say the words that need to be voiced today and that this time together provides some comfort.

We all wished this day would never come, and yet, we gather this morning to say goodbye, to reflect on Wendy's life and all that she meant to you. Although Wendy was as prepared as she could be, It’s only natural that you may feel sad today. It is my hope that today is also a day of gratitude, beauty, memories and a celebration of Wendy’s life. I hope that you remember this day as a special one in which you share precious time with friends and family as you bid farewell to a woman you have all been privileged to know.

We come together this morning to mourn, celebrate and hold Wendy in a state of grace, affirming her goodness and to offer our blessings for eternal peace of mind, body and spirit.

It is heartbreaking to lose someone we love. Their lives are stitched together with ours and it’s hard to imagine life without them. I want to share a poem with you as a reminder that love lasts beyond our physical plane.

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

Wendy Louise Babcox was born October 26, 1963 in Windsor, Berkshire, in the United Kingdom to John David Pratt and Carole Hare. Growing up, her family resided in several British counties including Cornwall, Devon, Norfolk and Gloucester before permanently moving to the U.S.

As a child, Wendy’s creative spark was ignited when she was given her first camera at the age of 10 and further explored her passion for photography and drawing through high school art classes.

Wendy received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and an MFA from the University of Florida in Gainesville. She then taught Photography and Art at the Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan before joining the faculty at University of South Florida in Tampa as a tenured professor, where she taught from 2003 until in 2024.

As a lifelong seeker and advocate for using your voice and artistic expression to make the world a better place, Wendy traveled to the middle east several times to work with women in storytelling workshops. Her photography work reflected the stark beauty of her travels.

Not one to take herself too seriously, Wendy expressed herself through performative work including involvement with women's wrestling groups KPOWW! and Slapdown. In 2004, when describing her performative wrestling, aimed at transforming stereotypes of women..Creative Loafing reported, “Some women make a career out of misbehaving, but Babcox makes an art of it”. Her ability to express herself and live out loud invited her students and everyone around her to be more authentic as well. In 2017, Wendy, along with her step daughter Madeline, created SMASHBANG to fulfill a lifelong desire to play the drums. Together, they performed and hosted all womxn drum lessons with local drummers. As Wendy became more interested in drumming, her interest included making drums, of which she created 7 that will be on display this evening.

Throughout her career, Wendy continued to make and display her art creating installations and commissions both nationally and internationally. Although she found photography to be a powerful dialogue between the world and her lived experience. She described her relationship with photography in an interview saying, "Photography is also inexorably linked to an experience of time, both as a record of a specific moment and as a residue, or trace of the past.” Her work was wide ranging, conceptual and often collaborative, welcoming projects where she worked as a member of a collective, where she was inspired to work with others in collaboration and with a subdued sense of authorship. Her artwork was often inspired by points of tension and conflict, by the environment and by feminist concerns.

Often when we reflect on someone's life at its end, it is easy to focus on what they did. And Wendy did a lot! What our legacy really is, is who we are and how we show up in the world. I recently read a quote that said, “Your purpose is not the thing you do. It is the thing that happens in others when you do what you do”. Wendy lived life to its fullest. She was brave. She spoke her mind and led by example through her creative endeavors that served as an expression of her beliefs. She was a voice and advocate, fighting for social and political justice. Her life inspired the lives and work of her students, friends and family. She was generous with her energy, constantly guiding, teaching and helping others, giving them the courage to be the truest versions of themselves too.

Wendy is an inspiration to us all. Her favorite musician, David Bowie asked the question,

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I've got left?

He reminds us that our time is now to follow our passions and to stay curious and open, much like your Wendy.

Wendy was a bright light in this world and was unfailingly generous with that light. An artist, performer, teacher, student, wife, stepmother, friend, daughter, sister, aunt, and mentor - Wendy touched all of us with her contagious enthusiasm, joy and kindness. Multi-talented, stylish and cool - she shared her energy and attention so generously with so many. I can see why she is so greatly missed!

Our beliefs about life and death are personal and as individual as each of us are, however as I have learned from everything that you have shared about your beloved Wendy, I can only imagine that she is plotting her next adventure. To quote David Bowie one more time, he said, “I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.”

In the lines of her poem, “For those laid to rest here”, Fran Hall provides a different perspective to the loss that we feel when our loved one is no longer with us on the physical plane:

Under a soft blanket of fallen leaves,

safe in the hush of the whispering trees

I have come home.

My time here on earth is now done,

all the noise and the clamour, the joy and the pain,

the powerful life force that drove me onwards

has slipped away into the quiet of eternity,

and I am at peace.

I have returned to the place from whence I came,

to the elements that created me.

The earth that gave me the life I so loved

has now welcomed me back to her,

to be at one with all her beauty.

Let us together, through our mind’s eye take a moment to support Wendy in this sacred rite of passage, as is our work as the living and why we gather here today. I invite you to close your eyes and imagine with me. We are all standing together at the river's edge holding lanterns to light her way. We have built a canoe for Wendy’s journey. See the canoe in your mind's eye now. Maybe it's made of wood, sanded smooth. Perhaps painted brightly and filled with flowers, love notes tucked into the corners and lined with soft, down filled pillows. This canoe represents your love, the love that carries and holds her.

See the river now in front of you. Is it wide? Slow moving? Sparkling with sunlight or dark and faintly lit by moonlight?

On the opposite river's edge, is Wendy’s next adventure. Colors that she has never seen. Perhaps it is Flash there waiting for her.

Now together, let’s gently push the canoe out into the river. To a place beyond pain, at one with it all, returning to her essence, to the elements -the earth, the air, fire or to the water itself. She is filled with love and at peace.

I imagine there is so much more to be said today. I encourage you to continue to share your stories about Wendy. The most powerful legacy of all is how we live. Wendy showed us this. From her example, I encourage you to:

Lift others up and lend your voice to those that need to be heard

Be brave and curious

Make the world a better place by being unapologetically yourself

Don’t wait to follow your dreams

Learn something new and be willing to be not insanely good at it

Treat each day as a precious gift

Share your knowledge

And most of all,

Love deeply

I want to thank Wendy’s husband Timothy Baker, stepdaughter Madeline Baker, brothers William and Roger Pratt, sister Karen Hare, stepmother Marie Price, stepsister Sarah Sullivan, niece and nephews Louis Pratt, Josh Hare and Holly Hare for entrusting me with the honor to lead this celebration today. Grief is a long and winding road, one not meant to be traveled alone. Reach out to one another, continue to share your memories of Wendy and give each other the gift of grace. It has been a privilege to walk her home. Please take good care of yourselves and each other.

As a final blessing and for the consoling embrace of steadiness and clarity in our most difficult moments, I will conclude with a reading by John O’Donohue called Beannacht, which is an Irish word for blessing.

On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets into you,

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green

and azure blue,

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the current of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.