Claiborne Mitchell lived a riotous, robust and righteous inspiring life. Empathetic, vibrant and kind; she loved hard, was able to receive big love and she always showed up – accompanied by her ready glee – a hard act to follow and one to celebrate.

Despite all sorts of calamities and challenging scenarios presented to her, she always rose to the occasion with phenomenal energy, heart, humor and a splash of tongue-twisting colorful language. She loved her motorbiking, tramping the desert, dusty markets, anyone who made her laugh, the gifts of languages and experimenting with recipes ~ a grand citizen of the world.

Infuriatingly discrete about working with A-listers, Claiborne offered up some great snippets of escapades added to magical connections made on her chosen travels – combined with her love & knowledge of classical and Americana music – shared in that voice & raucous contagious laughter, conversations were never dull. Constantly bigging up those she respected, creating schemes & raising funds for thoughtful enterprises, always curious, relishing the New (read: endless appetite for awe, foods and pleasures) and invariably with a glass of icy prosecco round her fire pit, roll up puff, kicking up some dust ~ like she’d swallowed the sun, she was a lot of fun.

Claiborne was forever expressing love of her dear brother, Allston and his wife of almost 4 decades, Gill, fiercely proud of her daughter, the light of her life, Hayden, who along with her cherished friendships (many from when they were kids together) she knew made her a better, more creative, loving & tender human.
Claiborne was especially impacted by the community of her little big home town in the Owens Valley where, when she needed support, friends & neighbors rallied to cradle her and overwhelm her with love & affection which lifted her beyond her wildest dreams.

Claiborne and her sextet of brain lesions went up sleeping peacefully, just as she wanted, from her wild garden in Independence, on the secret side of the California Eastern High Sierra, next to her frog song portal pond and a crackling fire under the mulberry tree where she found joy, calm and her continuum.

Look up to the skies, she’s not gone, raise a glass and, as she would say in her radio signoff …”stay soft and lovely”.

“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge,” Bertrand Russell