Janet Marian Van Sickle, who had lifelong passions for the seashore and horticulture, "was a pioneer who lived fully, with a great sense of adventure," her son, Krae Van Sickle, wrote.
Ms. Van Sickle died at home in Montauk on Nov. 8. She was 86 and had had a series of health problems in recent years.
She studied art and ceramics at Bard College, and then moved to Paris in the 1950s and to Greenwich Village after that. She was immersed in the art scene there, working at Cafe Figaro from 1958 to 1964.
In 1958 she married Ken Van Sickle, with whom she had a son. The marriage ended in divorce.
She spent her summers alternately on Fire Island and Vieques, Puerto Rico. In 1971 she moved to Boulder Creek, Calif., to a small-market organic farm and garden. There she learned to split her own wood, grow her own food and flowers, roof a house, pour cement, design the irrigation for a garden, and gained an "appreciation of the wisdom of natural systems design," her son wrote.
After time in El Salvador exploring gardening in the tropics, she taught "life systems" on a farm at a boarding school in Vermont, did a food and water self-sufficiency study for the Heartwood Institute, a healing center in Garberville, Calif., and taught organic farming at Evergreen State College in Washington State.
In 1990 she moved to the South Fork "to be with her family, whom she adored and was the center of her life," her son wrote. She lived in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, from 1999 to 2004, and in Montauk since then.
Ms. Van Sickle served on the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee and East Hampton Town's agricultural, energy and sustainability, and transfer station committees. In addition to horticulture, she enjoyed reading and had an enduring interest in progressive politics, nature, and natural systems planning.
She was born in the Bronx on Sept. 6, 1936, to Max Goldenberg and the former Florence Berkson. She grew up there and in Manhattan.
In addition to her son, who lives in Springs, she is survived by two grandchildren, Elias Van Sickle of Springs and Brooklyn and Siena Van Sickle of Springs, and by two brothers, Richard Goldenberg of Plainfield, N.J., and Michael Freund of Stockbridge, Vt.
Ms. Van Sickle was buried at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton. A memorial to celebrate her life will be announced for a date in 2023.
