Stan and Mickie Croner

My parents moved from Laurel Canyon to Mendocino around 1980 for my father to continue making films and for my mother to – well, figure out what she wanted to do. Ray and Miriam were wonderful friends of theirs and Miriam really helped my mother find her way when she became interested in fibre work, photo fabric printing, eventually publishing a book that I believe Mariam helped her with. I was in college in Berkeley and would come visit a lot and somehow found myself in a meadow as a subject when Ray wanted to make a sculpture of me or something related to me… I remember sitting and talking quietly to him off and on for several weeks as he did his work…I am now heading up to be a judge at the Mendocino film festival, May, 2024, and so hope to run into some of my parents, Stan and Mickie’s friends. Stan passed in 2008, Mickie passed of Covid luckily very peacefully. Ray and Miriam, along with Dick and Estelle Grunewald really opened their hearts to my folks when they headed up to the wild north of Mendocino from comparatively tame Laurel Canyon. And I am so grateful they found fellow dreamers.

—Karen Croner