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62 P E R S P E C T I V E | S E P T E M B E R / O C TO B E R 2 0 1 6 milestones PATRICIA VAN RYKER 1948 – 2015 by Ron Colby, her husband and partner Production Designer and documentary producer/director Patricia van Ryker passed away on December 5, 2015. A California native, Ms. van Ryker received a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California and a master of fine arts from California Institute of the Arts. Patricia began her career in Los Angeles theater in scenic design. Simultaneously, she began designing for film and television. She transitioned from assistant to Production Designer with such cult television hits as Wonder Woman, V and Scarecrow and Mrs. King. Moving into features and movies of the week, her design work set the tone for kidnappers, stalkers, Malibu Beach kids and more than a few murderers. Often her designs depicted true events, re-creating United Airlines Flight 232 for Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232. With After the Shock, her work revealed the streets, apartments and lives during and immediately after the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. For that design, she received a CableACE Award nomination for Art Direction. She was Production Designer for ten seasons on the Warner Bros. show 7th Heaven. Her work there was honored with an Emmy ® nomination for Best Art Direction. For three years, she served as a Governor on the Board of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, where she successfully championed the rights of set decorators to share the title of the branch. She was an accomplished still photographer which led to her desire to make documentaries. She got her chance with producer/director Ronald Colby. For him, she was executive producer on the comedy pilot Ex-Chronicles and co-producer on three feature documentaries, Jones Beach Boys, Scotland's Caddies and Pirate for the Sea, which premiered at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival and went on to screen in festivals worldwide. Pirate had an extensive run on Discovery's Planet Green. In 2003, while visiting the gallery of a friend, she learned of Oaxacan artist Alejandro Santiago's ongoing struggle to create 2,501 life-size ceramic sculptures honoring people who had to leave their village to search for work in the US. Later, relating the experience to Colby, he looked at her and said, "There's your documentary." Producing with Ron, Patricia directed and wrote the film, Twenty Five Hundred & One. It had its festival premiere in France in 2009 and was a festival selection across the United States, Mexico and again in France at the Cannes Independent Film Festival. It was awarded the Grand Prize at the San Antonio Film Festival, and premiered on KCET, Los Angeles Public Television, in October 2011. At the time of her passing from pancreatic cancer, she was completing a new feature documentary with Colby that exemplifies the importance of small businesses to the US economy. She is survived by her husband Ronald Colby, brother Charles Ryker and cousins, Maj. John Franklin of the US Marine Corps, Kristin Franklin-Kohler and Patrick Franklin of San Jose, California. For a remembrance, please direct your generosity to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. For further information, please contact: R. Colby at Blakeboard56@aol.com