April 28, 1929 – July 26, 2018
Marjorie Joan (Birck) Sawyer, 89, longtime resident of Laguna Beach, passed away July 26, 2018 in Vancouver, Washington.
She was born April 28, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Long Island, receiving a bachelor’s degree in education from the State University of New York, New Paltz.
In 1950, she married Frederick George Sawyer and moved to California where they raised their two daughters.
Marjorie was an extraordinary cloisonné jeweler whose work appears in private collections throughout the country and in several magazines featuring the art of enameling. She taught at the Pasadena Art Museum, Sierra Madre Creative Arts Group, and the Laguna College of Art and Design.
She was also an accomplished ceramicist, exhibiting both mediums at the Laguna Festival of the Arts for over 20 years.
She is survived by her partner, Walter Reiss of Laguna Beach; daughters Kathi Sawyer of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Pam Wilkins of Vancouver, Washington; grandson Ryan Spurlock of Escondido, California and three great-grandchildren.
