Loss and legacy were on everyone’s mind on Mar. 15, 2025, as Catherine Coulson’s fans, friends, and family attended a screening of “I Know Catherine, The Log Lady” at the recently restored Ojai Playhouse in Ojai, California. Several of the late, great Log Lady’s collaborators participated in a Q&A session after the film, including Ojai resident Mark Frost.
The long-awaited documentary, directed by Mulholland Drive’s Richard Green (The Magician in Club Silencio), covers Coulson’s career on stage and screen and offers a rare look at her personal life.
Coulson passed away in 2015 just days after filming her scenes for the Twin Peaks revival, and the film covers this final act in detail. Green raised funds to tell Coulson’s incredible story via Kickstarter in 2017, and after nearly eight years, the documentary’s rollout is finally underway.
About an hour before the screening, guests mingled in the lobby of the Ojai Playhouse eating charcuterie while the Twin Peaks soundtrack played through the speakers.
“This cherry pie is a miracle” came to mind as I saw the perfectly lit display behind the counter.
Upon filing into the theater, attendees would find cookies shaped like the Log Lady’s iconic red glasses on the armrest of each chair.
The director gave a brief introduction and informed the audience that the Q&A would begin immediately after the film.
After the credits rolled, panelists were invited up to the stage one by one. Special guests included Twin Peaks’ co-creator Mark Frost; executive producer Sabrina Sutherland; Catherine Coulson’s close friend and creative collaborator Jenny Sullivan; David Lynch’s longtime sound mixer Ronald Eng, and Twin Peaks location tour guide David Israel.
DREAMS OF THE DEPARTED
As much of the film is centered around Coulson’s passing, the Q&A turned into a general discussion about death, grief, and what happens next. Dreams and communication with departed loved ones came up frequently.
“I [talk to Catherine] all the time. I have dreams about her,” said Jenny Sullivan, who was close friends with Coulson for fifty years. “We just had so many experiences in our lives. We were supporting each other all the way.”
Mark Frost reflected on a prescient moment he had the night before receiving the news of David Lynch’s passing, saying, “I woke up at 2:30 in the morning and I couldn’t breathe…Finally at about 4, the feeling subsided and I went inside and I fell asleep on the sofa, and I woke up to my friend Harley Peyton, who was one of the writers on the show, saying ‘David’s gone.’ I don’t know if that has anything to do at all with anything, but it was somehow not surprising to me. I feel and have felt with people that I’m close to, often, that they’re not gone. I can have dialogues with them. You carry them inside. It’s deeper than memory. It’s a part of who you are.”
Sabrina Sutherland, who also lost her mother recently, said, “I like to think he’s around. I like to think my mom’s around. But unlike so many people, I have not had any dreams about David. I’ve had dreams about my mom, but not David. But everybody I’ve met, who I’ve talked to, has had a dream about David. I’m quite jealous.”
Richard Green shared a funny story from his interview with David Lynch that didn’t make it into the film. “I said to him, ‘Do you dream about Catherine?’ and he said, ‘Oh, I don’t remember my dreams, Richard!’”
DIE WITH YOUR BOOTS ON
As shown in the film, Catherine Coulson was determined to complete her work as the Log Lady despite being in hospice care. Even in her final days, she put all of her energy into her craft.
“We knew it was kind of a miracle that she had made it to that point and was able to answer the bell and died with her boots on,” said Mark Frost. “And anybody who’s been in show business as I have my entire life, and been raised in a show business family, that’s what you do. And it felt like that was how she wanted to go.”
When asked what she thought Coulson would want fans to take away from her story, Jenny Sullivan said, “She really cared about her audiences so much. As a theater actress, as the Log Lady, in everything that she did. She really wanted you to follow your dreams and embrace life the way she did.”
“I never met Catherine, I’m sorry to say because it seems like she was a wonderful person to know,” said Ronald Eng who nevertheless felt Coulson’s loss while working on Twin Peaks: The Return. “I just remember there was one time, I think it probably was when we were doing one of Catherine’s scenes, and I could just tell that [David Lynch] was pretty broken up that she was no longer with us.”
Sabrina Sutherland remembered Coulson as both kind and driven. “I wouldn’t say a ‘mother hen,’ but it was kind of like, just very generous and very welcoming to everybody and really made things happen.”
LEGACY OF THE LOG
One fan asked a question that was on the tip of every tongue: Where is The Log now? Jenny Sullivan confirmed its safety and spoke of its travels. “The Log has been on many journeys since. Catherine always used to like to say it was in cold storage. It was in her basement.”
Since Catherine’s passing, Sullivan has driven it back and forth from Oregon to Los Angeles so that David Lynch could make a 3-D scan of the famous prop, and so it could attend Coulson’s daughter Zoey’s wedding.
“The Log is currently with Zoey, and she came up with this beautiful idea and I’m hoping it all works out…She lives in Portland and there’s the World Forestry [Center] there, and she’s been very upset about all the cuts to federal workers and stuff, and she wanted to do something for this museum,” Sullivan shared. “She initiated a discussion with them about a couple of weeks, The Log is going to be under glass if we can work it all out…So she’s taken on the mantle of her mom, which is so cool.”
Family came up quite a bit throughout the discussion, and Richard Green took a moment to acknowledge the Coulsons who were present in the audience.
“Is it possible for a moment to get the house lights, just for a moment…There are so many Coulsons in this room,” Green said as he shielded his eyes to look at the crowd. “I really would like all the Coulsons just to stand up so we can see just some of this clan.”
One such relative, Connie Coulson Ollivier, had recently stumbled upon a priceless artifact – the screen-used Log Lady glasses.
Green said, “Everybody in the whole team is freaked out because Connie was walking in the house and decided she needed to look for something in the closet, and what did she find? These are them. The actual Catherine glasses.”
The glasses, which were displayed in the theater’s lobby for this event, were brought to the stage and shown to the audience.
TWIN PEAKS NEWS
No event celebrating the Log Lady would be complete without some Twin Peaks talk. Mark Frost acknowledged that now is not the time, but expressed an openness to future Peaks-related projects. “I think we both felt we finished telling the story the last time,” he said of his work with David Lynch. “There may be ways to fill out the universe, which is something I’ve always enjoyed doing, but it’s almost too soon to talk about if you don’t mind.”
Sabrina Sutherland spoke of future exhibits showcasing Twin Peaks memorabilia.
“We’ve been preparing his archive over the last year and a half, maybe two years. Kristine McKenna and I have been working on that, and so we’re going to have that with an institution of some sort,” she said. “And then there’s a museum, a Twin Peaks museum, that’s in Poland that’s being built, and a David Lynch kind of museum along with that. They are the ones who bought most of the props and sets and costumes and things like that, so they have the actual artifacts there.”
Meanwhile, Twin Peaks fan David Israel got to thank a few of the forces behind the show face to face, saying, “Thank you, both Sabrina and Mr. Frost. Without them, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”
Richard Green, who had taken Israel’s Twin Peaks Tour through the Snoqualmie Valley’s filming locations, spoke highly of the experience and even recommended it to Frost and Sutherland.
AFTERGLOW
There was no meet and greet planned after the panel, but a line organically formed down the aisle. Mark Frost graciously sat down in the glow of the stage lights and spoke with every single fan before leaving. Much like David Israel, I’m not sure who I would be without Twin Peaks, and I’m so glad to have had an opportunity to express my gratitude for this evergreen body of work.
Check out upcoming screenings of this film at IKnowCatherine.com.
