Sabreee
Sabreee & Robert De Niro
Patricia Elaine Sabree, {formally Patricia Elaine McFadden} is the product of Lake City, a small country town carved from the dark earth, located in the low country of South Carolina. Lake City is known for its amazing crop raising, dusky flatland, muddy-swamp wetland, endless fishing, surplus of snakes, and the Gullah people culture. Even though now divorced, Sabree kept her married name, "Sabree" due to its meaning, "one who perseveres until the job is done," and the connection it gave to her two lovely daughters- Faridah aka Oshuin and Ameenah.
As of Dec. 2022, Sabree has updated her artist name to "Sabreee" to embrace, add and express the uniqueness and prosperity to the meaning of the original name.
Sabreee and her fourteen siblings spent most of their youth working on the farm. Their parents were loyal sharecroppers who taught their children the value of hard work. This is certain to be what contributed to their strong craving for education coupled with the desire for another way of life. Living on the farm was very hard, and demanded a strength of iron, but looking back it was the best thing that could have ever happened. It gave them the foundation of good work ethics and made the children strive even harder to obtain an education. The farm featured hundreds of acres of tobacco, cucumbers, cotton, corn, string beans, watermelons, basically a very large garden. Father, J.W. McFadden, used a mule and a hand-held plow to plant the garden, which was adjacent to the house. He often said, "It made better rows for planting." Mother, Elizabeth McFadden, trailed in behind digging holes for the seeds. The children would come along and throw the seeds in the hole and cover them with bare feet. A typical day for the McFadden's started at 3:00 a.m. unloading the barn that housed the tobacco after curing (cooking the tobacco).
The children operated in shifts. Some nights the siblings would go to unload the barn, and the alternating night(s) the next set of siblings went. Elizabeth would get up around 5:00 a.m. to prepare breakfast for all the siblings and J.W. She was an amazing cook who sported a rather tall shapely ebony frame. After breakfast, the children climbed on the back of the truck and worked from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Mondays through Fridays occasionally some Saturdays. Most of the days was spent stringing tobacco or suckering tobacco (suckering is a process of removing impurities between the full tobacco plant; it could take over the plant if not eradicated). It is a tedious process that requires patience and endurance. The rows of the tobacco plant, cotton and cucumber fields gave the impression of no end in sight, of which you will witnessed in many of Sabreee's paintings.
To escape the dreaded fields of labor, Sabreee obtained a Bachelor's of Arts Degree from South Carolina State University, and a Master's of Education from Southern Wesleyan, Central, South Carolina. Her Art professors from S.C.S.U. were Mr. Hunter, Dr. Michaux, and Dr. Leo Twiggs. Of the three Art professors, it was Dr. Leo Twiggs, a famous Batik artist, who had most inspired her love for painting. She has been teaching Art for twenty-two years, four years in Elementary School (South Fant, Whitehall, Homeland Park, Anderson, South Carolina) and fifteen years at Pendleton High School, Pendleton, South Carolina and three years at Bishop Spaugh Middle School, Charlotte, North Carolina. Sabree has tasted the flavor of all three worlds, holding partiality to high school. She proclaims there is something special about working with older students who are independent thinkers. After working for 15 years as a High School Art Teacher, Sabreee heard a little voice telling her that she needed a new challenge. Although her students were awesome and Pendleton High supported the Fine Arts Program, having spent so many years promoting her students and their art, she knew they would be fine. She felt she was needed elsewhere. If she was going to survive as an artist, she had to move to where Art was flourishing. For years the feeling was like a compelling urge beckoning her to move on. Unable to shake the feeling, she packed up and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Soon after she started to blossom as an artist. The head Principal, Mr. Tyrone McDonald, asked her to be the chairperson over the "Fashion in the School" committee. Through Bishop Spaugh Middle she worked with Mr. Cary Mitchell, a famous fashion designer and creator of "Fashion in the School." He spent three weeks, in her classroom after school, teaching students designing principles which led to them redesigning uniforms for her school. His program was a rousing success, and Sabree and her students were fortunate to have been apart of it. As an Art instructor, she enjoyed decorating almost the entire school with students' art works and creative bulletin boards. Many teachers caught wind of this, and at their request, Sabreee started painting pictures, illustrations, and redesigning classrooms. And yes, everyone liked it. Eventually, people started asking her to paint pictures and illustrations for their homes. And again, they liked it. She started building a portfolio and wanted to frame her works. So while perusing through "Arts, Crafts, and Frames Gallery" of Anderson, South Carolina for frames for her art works, the gallery owner was pleasantly amazed by several of her art works. They asked her if she had ever done works on commission. She told them that she had because she owned a gallery once in Clemson, South Carolina called "Sabree's Gallery of the Arts," basically doing sculptural pieces and working with clay. However, she still felt that this was not the right genre for her works. So, once again she heard the little voice telling her that she needed to be painting pictures. "Arts, Crafts, and Frames Gallery" started to compare her style of painting to Mr. Jonathan Green, a very prominent Charlestonian, South Carolina artist, who is known around the world for his Expressionistic paintings. After researching Mr. Green's work, she started to see a correlation. After all, both were from South Carolina, both painted (Mr. Green in oil and Sabreee in acrylic), and both have an appreciation for the Gullah culture. Sabreee had once read somewhere that Mr. Jonathan Green was solely responsible for resurrecting the Gullah culture single-handedly. What an accomplishment and compliment for her to be compared to his.
As of Dec. 2022, the name "Sabree's Gallery of the Arts" has been updated to "Sabreee's Gullah Art Gallery".
When you observe her works, you will find them reminiscence of the deep south; fishing off the river bank or swamp land; walking barefoot in the rain; working all day in the cotton, tobacco, cucumbers, and watermelon fields; running in the blazing sun; throwing a frisbee; laughing and playing in a game of outdoor basketball; climbing a grapevine tree; being whipped across the legs for not doing a chore; chasing a butterfly in a red and white polka-dotted dress while pigtails dance in the wind; little girls' hair being braided; little boys shooting a bb gun while man's best friend supports the hunt; listening to the Blues or voices of Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flacks, Glades Knight and James Brown while enjoying ice cream and cake on a sunny summer's Sunday. The neighbors from every part of town gather in conversations with an occasional courtship with her beautiful ebony sisters. These are the stories behind the paintings that shapes Sabreee's art.
Sabreee explains that she felt the need to expose these images to the world. Some days she expressed that she can barely put down a paint brush due to the images she sees in her dreams and awakened state. Most importantly, there is a force resonating through her emphatically stating that, this is the time... time to tell the visual low country story that needs to be told. Her style can be best classified as Expressionism because of the bold brushstrokes, vibrant lash of colors, crossed-sectional patterns, sometimes featureless individuals, bright-eyed little girls and boys. She is painting a legacy of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, friends, and the Gullah people's way of life.
Update:
On June 14, 2010, Sabreee left the teaching profession as an Art instructor to pursue her love for Art full time. "It was one of the toughest decisions I have ever made, but one that needed to be made," proclaims Sabreee. Sabreee is still an early riser - getting up on Mondays - Fridays at 4:00 a.m to work on her paintings. Her goals are to educate/inform the world about the richness of the Gullah culture; to support and foster awareness of the importance of the Arts in public education; and most importantly, to become an established artist doing what she loves most - Art. Her daughter, Oshuin, champions beside her as her business partner. Oshuin once said to her mom, "I'm gonna do whatever it takes to see that you are successful. You've raised me and Ameenah literally by yourself; you've sacrificed so much for us to have a college education." Oshuin took a back seat to her career as a Culinary Artist graduating from Johnson & Wales so that her mom could take a front seat to her dream as an established artist. Oshuin is the designer of Sabreee's website, researches info on shows/ events, and travels alongside Sabreee promoting/selling her art. Oshuin is the backbone of Sabreee's Gullah Art Gallery.
As of Dec. 2022, Sabree has updated her artist name to "Sabreee" to embrace, add and express the uniqueness and prosperity to the meaning of the original name.
Sabreee and her fourteen siblings spent most of their youth working on the farm. Their parents were loyal sharecroppers who taught their children the value of hard work. This is certain to be what contributed to their strong craving for education coupled with the desire for another way of life. Living on the farm was very hard, and demanded a strength of iron, but looking back it was the best thing that could have ever happened. It gave them the foundation of good work ethics and made the children strive even harder to obtain an education. The farm featured hundreds of acres of tobacco, cucumbers, cotton, corn, string beans, watermelons, basically a very large garden. Father, J.W. McFadden, used a mule and a hand-held plow to plant the garden, which was adjacent to the house. He often said, "It made better rows for planting." Mother, Elizabeth McFadden, trailed in behind digging holes for the seeds. The children would come along and throw the seeds in the hole and cover them with bare feet. A typical day for the McFadden's started at 3:00 a.m. unloading the barn that housed the tobacco after curing (cooking the tobacco).
The children operated in shifts. Some nights the siblings would go to unload the barn, and the alternating night(s) the next set of siblings went. Elizabeth would get up around 5:00 a.m. to prepare breakfast for all the siblings and J.W. She was an amazing cook who sported a rather tall shapely ebony frame. After breakfast, the children climbed on the back of the truck and worked from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Mondays through Fridays occasionally some Saturdays. Most of the days was spent stringing tobacco or suckering tobacco (suckering is a process of removing impurities between the full tobacco plant; it could take over the plant if not eradicated). It is a tedious process that requires patience and endurance. The rows of the tobacco plant, cotton and cucumber fields gave the impression of no end in sight, of which you will witnessed in many of Sabreee's paintings.
To escape the dreaded fields of labor, Sabreee obtained a Bachelor's of Arts Degree from South Carolina State University, and a Master's of Education from Southern Wesleyan, Central, South Carolina. Her Art professors from S.C.S.U. were Mr. Hunter, Dr. Michaux, and Dr. Leo Twiggs. Of the three Art professors, it was Dr. Leo Twiggs, a famous Batik artist, who had most inspired her love for painting. She has been teaching Art for twenty-two years, four years in Elementary School (South Fant, Whitehall, Homeland Park, Anderson, South Carolina) and fifteen years at Pendleton High School, Pendleton, South Carolina and three years at Bishop Spaugh Middle School, Charlotte, North Carolina. Sabree has tasted the flavor of all three worlds, holding partiality to high school. She proclaims there is something special about working with older students who are independent thinkers. After working for 15 years as a High School Art Teacher, Sabreee heard a little voice telling her that she needed a new challenge. Although her students were awesome and Pendleton High supported the Fine Arts Program, having spent so many years promoting her students and their art, she knew they would be fine. She felt she was needed elsewhere. If she was going to survive as an artist, she had to move to where Art was flourishing. For years the feeling was like a compelling urge beckoning her to move on. Unable to shake the feeling, she packed up and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Soon after she started to blossom as an artist. The head Principal, Mr. Tyrone McDonald, asked her to be the chairperson over the "Fashion in the School" committee. Through Bishop Spaugh Middle she worked with Mr. Cary Mitchell, a famous fashion designer and creator of "Fashion in the School." He spent three weeks, in her classroom after school, teaching students designing principles which led to them redesigning uniforms for her school. His program was a rousing success, and Sabree and her students were fortunate to have been apart of it. As an Art instructor, she enjoyed decorating almost the entire school with students' art works and creative bulletin boards. Many teachers caught wind of this, and at their request, Sabreee started painting pictures, illustrations, and redesigning classrooms. And yes, everyone liked it. Eventually, people started asking her to paint pictures and illustrations for their homes. And again, they liked it. She started building a portfolio and wanted to frame her works. So while perusing through "Arts, Crafts, and Frames Gallery" of Anderson, South Carolina for frames for her art works, the gallery owner was pleasantly amazed by several of her art works. They asked her if she had ever done works on commission. She told them that she had because she owned a gallery once in Clemson, South Carolina called "Sabree's Gallery of the Arts," basically doing sculptural pieces and working with clay. However, she still felt that this was not the right genre for her works. So, once again she heard the little voice telling her that she needed to be painting pictures. "Arts, Crafts, and Frames Gallery" started to compare her style of painting to Mr. Jonathan Green, a very prominent Charlestonian, South Carolina artist, who is known around the world for his Expressionistic paintings. After researching Mr. Green's work, she started to see a correlation. After all, both were from South Carolina, both painted (Mr. Green in oil and Sabreee in acrylic), and both have an appreciation for the Gullah culture. Sabreee had once read somewhere that Mr. Jonathan Green was solely responsible for resurrecting the Gullah culture single-handedly. What an accomplishment and compliment for her to be compared to his.
As of Dec. 2022, the name "Sabree's Gallery of the Arts" has been updated to "Sabreee's Gullah Art Gallery".
When you observe her works, you will find them reminiscence of the deep south; fishing off the river bank or swamp land; walking barefoot in the rain; working all day in the cotton, tobacco, cucumbers, and watermelon fields; running in the blazing sun; throwing a frisbee; laughing and playing in a game of outdoor basketball; climbing a grapevine tree; being whipped across the legs for not doing a chore; chasing a butterfly in a red and white polka-dotted dress while pigtails dance in the wind; little girls' hair being braided; little boys shooting a bb gun while man's best friend supports the hunt; listening to the Blues or voices of Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flacks, Glades Knight and James Brown while enjoying ice cream and cake on a sunny summer's Sunday. The neighbors from every part of town gather in conversations with an occasional courtship with her beautiful ebony sisters. These are the stories behind the paintings that shapes Sabreee's art.
Sabreee explains that she felt the need to expose these images to the world. Some days she expressed that she can barely put down a paint brush due to the images she sees in her dreams and awakened state. Most importantly, there is a force resonating through her emphatically stating that, this is the time... time to tell the visual low country story that needs to be told. Her style can be best classified as Expressionism because of the bold brushstrokes, vibrant lash of colors, crossed-sectional patterns, sometimes featureless individuals, bright-eyed little girls and boys. She is painting a legacy of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, friends, and the Gullah people's way of life.
Update:
On June 14, 2010, Sabreee left the teaching profession as an Art instructor to pursue her love for Art full time. "It was one of the toughest decisions I have ever made, but one that needed to be made," proclaims Sabreee. Sabreee is still an early riser - getting up on Mondays - Fridays at 4:00 a.m to work on her paintings. Her goals are to educate/inform the world about the richness of the Gullah culture; to support and foster awareness of the importance of the Arts in public education; and most importantly, to become an established artist doing what she loves most - Art. Her daughter, Oshuin, champions beside her as her business partner. Oshuin once said to her mom, "I'm gonna do whatever it takes to see that you are successful. You've raised me and Ameenah literally by yourself; you've sacrificed so much for us to have a college education." Oshuin took a back seat to her career as a Culinary Artist graduating from Johnson & Wales so that her mom could take a front seat to her dream as an established artist. Oshuin is the designer of Sabreee's website, researches info on shows/ events, and travels alongside Sabreee promoting/selling her art. Oshuin is the backbone of Sabreee's Gullah Art Gallery.