Loreon Vigne was born in Manhattan, New York on June 8, 1932. Loreon is the founder of the Temple of Isis, a legal church which is headquartered at Isis Oasis in Geyserville, California. Her life is one that is filled with many amazing synchronicities - a series of magical events that led her to the Goddess Isis.

As a girl she studied ballet and showed early signs of being a gifted artist and singer. When she was a teen-ager, her family moved from White Plains New York to Los Angeles, California. After Loreon completed high school she was awarded a scholarship to the Kahn Institute of Art in Beverly Hills. The year following she attended the California School of Art, and it was here that she first met Dion Vigne, whom she eventually married. They mixed in circles of experimental filmmakers, musicians and artists many of whom lived in areas of Topanga Canyon and the Hollywood Hills. Loreon had always been drawn to the creative arts, and it was during these early years at art school that she began to break away from the life she had previously known and began to spread her own wings. She was talented and she met with success in her early ventures, which included a ceramic business which she owned with her husband Dion. Their wares sold readily, and soon it was necessary to find a larger workplace to accommodate filling their many orders. Sadly a fire destroyed their business, taking nearly everything they owned, except for one small enamel kiln. After settling their affairs, the two moved to San Francisco, where many of their friends had already gone.

It was in the North Beach area of San Francisco that Loreon eventually opened another business, called “The Paint Pot” near Grant and Green Streets. The original location was a few doors away from the famous Bagel Shop, and directly across the street from the Coffee Gallery, a meeting place for those involved in the Beat Movement. Loreon was photographed working in this store and the picture was featured on the cover of a book titled “I am a Lover” by Jerry Stoll and Evan S. Connell Jr. Her enamels began selling very well, and her business steadily grew. Eventually she opened the "Noir Gallery" located at Sutter and Stockton Streets in downtown San Francisco. Her line of enamels were called "Noir Enamelcraft". Both the gallery and art pieces were named for her beloved black cat, Noir.

The people that Loreon and her husband Dion interacted with were influential filmmakers, poets, musicians and artists, who were in the process of creating a legacy through their work that would have an impact on generations to come. Their friends in Los Angeles and San Francisco included experimental filmmakers Jordan and Jane Belson and Jim Whitney, the photographer Edmond Teske, artist Wally Berman and jazz pianist Ed Taylor. Recently Loreon was overheard to say “I had better call Ferlinghetti.”

Loreon and Dion Vigne eventually divorced, and in the 1970's Dion passed away. His work, in the form of film reel and audio tapes, was carefully preserved and stored by Loreon. In 1997 Loreon gave these works to David Sherman and his wife Rebecca. They were experts in the experimental film era of the 50‘s, especially 16 mm film, and had the equipment to access and preserve these pieces, which included not only films but taped interviews with Alan Watts, Jordan Belson and Alan Ginsburg. Eventually some of this work was featured in a television documentary on experimental film of the 1950’s. Dion’s work is now in the collections at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum in New York and the Pacific Film Archive in Berkley.

His work is described in the following manner in the archival film catalogues: "Films shot in the 50s and 60s by San Francisco filmmaker Dion Vigne, spinning through a lost history, a disappearance of names and faces and works and words of the characters who comprised one of the great chapters in American Underground filmmaking. At the center of this San Francisco re-history is the little known Beat filmmaker - Dion Vigne - a character who we never see but rather feel through the influences of his more renowned contemporaries - Christopher MacLaine, Jordan Belson, the Whitney Brothers ..."

Isis Street