PARKS ADVOCATE
In 1970, I began looking for a small community project to become involved in and stumbled into the biggest land protection effort in our region: the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). For fourteen years I thought of little else except my family and this open space while conservationist Edgar Wayburn and I led People for a Golden Gate National Recreation Area. We took a government idea of 8,000 acres and helped it grow to what is now an 82,000 acre national park.
In the 1980s, I found time to make pictures again. Sometimes the pictures merge my two passions. Today my art studio and computer share the same big room where I work on pictures and the Golden Gate National Parks and other conservation projects every day.
Photo Credit: Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, Maria Durana
ARTIST
I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., graduated from Oberlin College, and married George D. Meyer, a psychiatrist. He was sent to the Bay Area in the Korean War doctor's draft, and after his service we stayed here and moved to San Francisco. George died in 1998. Our daughters are married and live near me with their families in the city's Richmond District. We are a close-knit family.