Catch Me in the Morning II (2014) Painting by Sabree

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 and Ameenah. Sabree and her fourteen siblings spent most of their youth working on a 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 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 would climb 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 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 the paintings.

To escape the dreaded fields of labor, Sabree 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 who had most inspired her love for painting. She has been teaching Art for twenty-two years, four years in Ele...

• Nationality: UNITED STATES
• Date of birth : unknown date
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary American Artists