ROBIN MILLER

October 19, 1955 - May 17, 2025 

     Robin Miller was a devoted partner, parent, sister, and friend, a thoughtful host, a keen observer, a sympathetic ear, and a gentle spirit. She was attentive to the commonplace and the cosmic and the ways in which they intertwined. Robin took delight in a breathtaking landscape, an arresting work of art, a scrumptious meal, or a moment of quiet contemplation.

     Her creativity was always on display in both the food and the art that she made. Robin will be remembered for preparing numerous unforgettable meals, including some truly epic Thanksgivings. Jars of preserves and pickled vegetables from the backyard garden that she and Riley cultivated were treasured gifts. Robin captured the world in photographs and created woodblock prints, collages, and ornamental clamshell art boxes. Many of her artworks were fabricated out of all kinds of found and salvaged materials. When she chose to make art to give as a present, she took the time to make it just right for the recipient. 

     Robin enjoyed long walks or fishing trips where she could take photos, pick up the odd object, and collect her own thoughts. Much like her strolls on beaches and in the woods, her trips into thrift stores could result in some astounding discoveries. She enjoyed baking and meditating. She mingled her English with Spanish and a bissel of Yiddish. She was fond of the word verklempt. She also loved puns and wordplay. Her quick quips and inspired asides would make it clear to more loquacious conversationalists that she was very much in the room.

     Robin was born in Washington, D.C. to Paul Miller and Sue McGowen. She inherited her dad’s signature laugh. Growing up in Chicago, Robin was a big sister and first confidant to her brother Jonathan. She often visited the Art Institute of Chicago, particularly the Thorne Miniature Rooms, a place she would recommend to others over the years, whose fastidiously detailed diminutive interiors appealed to her fondness for imaginative detail.

     She came out West for high school and stayed there. Northern California was her Shangri-La. She studied art at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco where she took classes with Larry Sultan. She met Riley Moticka when he was behind the bar at Major Ponds in San Francisco. Robin became an ever-present and important figure for Riley’s daughters Amita and Maggie. Eight years after they first met, Robin and Riley were married in 1984. The home she made with Riley at 210 W. 3rd St. in Cloverdale for 37 years was its own art project and nature preserve. Quinn joined the family in 1989 and Reed in 1996.

     Amita, Maggie, Quinn, and Reed have fond recollections of Robin being someone who was able to pull off wearing turquoise jewelry, who introduced them to Monty Python, Masterpiece Theatre, and Mystery! or the art of Miró, Calder, O’Keeffe, and Eva Hesse, and who would whoop it up with them while watching a Golden State Warriors game. More than that, they remember Robin as an unceasing source of encouragement, a tenacious protector, a self- effacing artistic inspiration, and their greatest cheerleader.

     In 1991, Robin began working as a cook at the Bishop’s Ranch in Healdsburg. She worked there for 29 years. Over the many years that she served as Kitchen Manager, she saw the Ranch through many changes to the size of their staff and the scope of their menu. Robin presided over a period of transition when both cooks and diners became more mindful about the identifying the nature of the ingredients that went into a dish and the needs for special diets emerged. She organized the food provided at meetings of the Acorn Society, where she would teach cooking classes, and Grace Cathedral Evensong gatherings. As she oversaw every aspect of labeling, ordering, and scheduling, Robin remained cognizant of the ever changing complexities of food prep as well as the tastes and the personalities of the people behind it. She also came up with memorable desserts like mammoth chocolate mint cookie ice-cream sandwiches. Pat Moore said of Robin when she retired from the Ranch that she “led the kitchen through enormous changes, and did so with a spirit of adventure.”

     Robin’s final year was one of great difficulty for her but even with both the loss of Riley and distressing challenges to her physical body she provided a powerful example of fortitude to those around her. 

     Robin will be deeply missed by her family, all profoundly verklempt—her children Amita, Maggie, Quinn, and Reed, her grandson Grey, her brothers Jonathan, Anthony, and Doug, her sisters-in-law Elina and Sarah, her nephews Ezra and Caleb, her nieces Vivian, Trixie, and Astra, her stepmother Michal, her dear friends, her kitchen comrades at the Bishop’s Ranch, and all who ever who joined her on a walk or sat around a table or a fire pit with her.

     Robin used to listen regularly to Krista Tippett’s radio program On Being. She is no longer enthralled by questions on being. She is now free to explore the universe.

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