I first was introduced to Pat Sharp by a mutual friend of ours, a neighbor of hers when Pat lived on Lombard Street in Philadelphia. We met in a crowded seventies singles bar. Pat was hoping to hire someone to work with her, painting murals for interior decorators. I showed her my portfolio. I was hired.

The Pat I met on that rainy spring night was the Pat I would know for many decades. A personality bigger than life. As if what was inside of her couldn’t be contained by just her body. Her energy field extended way far beyond. As most people are, she was a mix. Pat was a mix of the ethereal, ( her extensive knowledge of astrology ) and the practical. Not loud or bossy or even demanding. She was a great deal older than I was, but she acted young and effervescent and she laughed a lot. Sure, I would like to paint murals with her. I was not working at that singles bar anymore and I had a feeling it would be fun to work with Pat.

Pat painted the walls with either a large or small crew in peoples’ homes. An example of a small crew was me alone being asphyxiated in an oil painted plaid closet. The decorator had sold the job to someone with bad taste, as was often the case. We would go into these expensive townhomes or penthouses, Pat swinging a paint can, later, sloshing a coffee cup, later still, a beer can. (“Don’t worry,” she would say, “There’s a drop cloth underneath me!”) Her car was a giant ashtray filled with spilled dried paint, paint cans and root beer barrels with root beer barrel wrappers. It was missing the muffler. Also consider the equipment she had to lug around: ladders, 5 gallon paint cans, drop cloths, etc. And I have to say, the car was a maroon small sedan with black interior which of course, you couldn’t see. We, the crew, would crowd in and she would drive us to the job, where she worked alongside us. My being alone in the plaid closet was an exception.

A large crew example, was a job which required scaffolding and six of us painting the kelly green living/dining room walls with white bamboo designs from baseboard to crown molding. This was a client who fixed us, the crew, breakfast, lunch and dinner on white tablecloth covered tables, in her dining/living room. My brother, Rusty even worked for Pat, not that he lived in the area, but during a summer break from college, he came to visit me and Pat put him to work on the bamboo job. Rusty, being a terrific dancer, taught us all how to dance on the scaffolding. Philadelphia was the center for old school soul music. An ordinary AM station had great dance tunes. Back and forth on the highest of levels, Pat and her crew learned how to dance, paintbrushes in hand.

All her life, Pat was a painter. A true artist, understood by others or not, she remained true to herself. She was giggly, fun, a gourmet cook. She had even been called a walking talking party. When she was visiting the food pantry because she had no money for food, she would make these gourmet meals, eating and enjoying them by herself. Actually she made meals which transcended gourmet. A foodie before Pat knew the word.

That was the Pat I knew. I knew her as this incredible, validating, vivacious artist who made up her own rules and charged through life with immense energy. Later on, many years later, she was living in a coastal town in Maine, ( which, she told me, is a Pisces state ) and she would laughingly tell me she was banned from the dollar store, ( How do you get yourself banned from a dollar store? ), kicked out of her doctor’s office, frequently saying “This is not the America I grew up in !” I had no idea that someone could be kicked out of those places and it’s interesting I never asked her why. Why? because it happened to Pat. But mostly charming to people, her auto mechanic, Dave, traded his work on her car for a painting of Pat’s. He had it hanging in his automotive office for years. An oil painting of water in a gold luminescent frame. She was proud of that work. The Water Series. And happy Dave liked it enough to buy it. She became attached to people and took care of them, in a way.

I miss Pat’s phone calls, her talking about Paul Klee giving her advice in her dreams, her many friends, fashion designs ( and executions ) she did for Milbridge’s Black Fly Ball every year, the Sunday suppers she attended at the church every week. And how proud she was of Jen and her husband, Lafayette. And of course, Cosima, Rafe and Ashton.

Nope, I guess there’s no replacing Pat Sharp. Touching my heart and life and the lives of so many. I will have to get to the other side to see her again. And with her, it could only be a great adventure!

Patricia Sharp May 4, 1939-December 12, 2023

Pat Sharp in the 1980s painting on her front porch in Medford Lakes, New Jersey.

Copyright 2024-2030 All Rights Reserved Hollis Hildebrand-Mills and Jen Compton No reproduction of Patricia Sharp’s artwork or photograph made without the Sharp or Compton family’s permission

Hollis Hildebrand-Mills

Divine Imagery is Everywhere (TM)