Claburn Mariii Lockwood

Claburn Mariii Lockwood was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The family moved from Detroit where her father did a hospital residency to Boulder, Colorado, in the mid-1950s. She spent much of her childhood growing up with her parents and three sisters in the countryside outside Boulder. She enjoyed gardening and baking with her mother, and foraging for edible wild plants. She had a life-long love of animals, especially cats, dogs, horses, and birds. She helped her mare, Maresen, deliver a colt, Kumar. With her sisters, she rescued orphaned flickers and raised them until they could fly off on their own.

Her passion for art began at an early age. She attended CU in Boulder with a focus on visual arts; she earned a two-year full-tuition scholarship for her artistic abilities. She taught children’s art classes through the City of Boulder Rec Program with the help of her youngest sister. She later attended art school in Banff, Canada. While still in Boulder, she fell in love with bicycling and took part in the Red Zinger (Celestial Seasonings) Bicycle Classic. Her love of biking inspired her parents to take up tandem biking.

Mariii moved to Fort Collins in her mid-20s where she started a business repairing bicycle tires as the “Wheel Wizard.” There, she also managed the Green Turtle restaurant bakery for many years.

She later relocated to the Pacific Northwest to manage and run the Quimper Inn Bed and Breakfast in Port Townsend, Washington. There she became friends with guests like jugglers The Flying Karamazov Brothers and the Celtic band Boys of the Lough. During that time, she created the official artwork for the Port Townsend bike races. She later moved to Portland, Oregon where she raised her daughter, Azzurra, and worked as a baker and an artist. There she created official artwork for the Rose Festival Dragon Boat Races.

In her last years, Mariii returned to Washington State to live in Port Hadlock. She continued to bike for pleasure, and returned to three great loves: gardening, art, and animals. She taught art classes and had a show at Bayside Art Gallery. She grew gardens of herbs, flowers, and vegetables every year, and fed the wild birds, especially two mourning doves who returned each year to raise their young; she named them Mimi and Rodolfo from La Boheme. She shared her love of flowers with her youngest sister, sending her zinnia seeds to grow in memory of their mother and older sister.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Gerald (Jake) and Geraldine (Jerry) Lockwood, and her sister Laura Lockwood. She is survived by her daughter, Azzurra Pounds Lockwood; her sisters Allison Lockwood (Mark Humbert) and Gretchen Lockwood (Arvid Bloom); her nephew Anthony Rizzo (Jenni) and niece Michaela Rizzo, and great-nieces and -nephews.