“Sadie was a true rebel. She was the most stubborn person I ever met in my life which is why she lived. She was kicked out of three schools. Once for dyeing her hair the wrong color,” Gary Chapman, University of Alabama at Birmingham art professor and artist, says.
“I think Bernadette and I realized that, in Sadie’s mind, she never really thought she was going to live very long. So why not do exactly what you want to do.”
Sadie lived the life she wanted to live.
“She lived her life on her own terms. After she passed, this bar that she worked at in New Orleans said they wanted to throw a party in her honor. So, we went down on a Monday night. All the patrons brought bottles and food and I swear there was close to 150 people there. As much as she was a rebel, people knew she was genuine. She was captivating.”
Sadie was born with a serious heart defect called Left Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Essentially, she was born without a left ventricle. She had her first surgery at 9 months, and then a second open-heart surgery at 8 years old.
From that point her life was somewhat normal. “Most people didn’t even know; except she wore tops where you could see her scar. She was really proud of it,” Chapman says.
Sadie Chapman with her parents, Gary and Bernadette. Her dad described her as a “true rebel.” (contributed)
Sadie was the centerpiece of “Electra,” which is now part of the Alabama Power Corporate Collection. (Gary Chapman)
As a late teenager she moved to New York to pursue studies in the theatre; that is when her heart began to fail. She came back home to Birmingham and had her heart transplant in 2015 at age 19. She went back to New York to finish the program, then came home and moved to New Orleans to become a bartender.
In March 2023, her heart failed again and she died of organ failure. She was 26.
A friend posted on Facebook the following thoughts: “A comet shooting across the sky, beautiful and fierce … Sass, and fire, and drinking down life … Sadie has been an inspiration to me and will be always. The world will never see the like again. I hold her, Bernadette and Gary, and all who love her in my heart.”
“We had hoped we would have more than seven years. I believed she would grow her own heart one day,” Chapman says.
Aside from the sadness of Sadie’s community of friends and family, one of the results of Sadie’s passing was her artist father’s collection of paintings memorializing Sadie’s too-brief life.
“Although it is deeply important to me personally that Sadie is the model, and the narrative of the work deals with Sadie, I also hope that in those paintings it really is more universal about children and young girls in particular. So, most of my work is conceptually driven. In an attempt to be personal but also universal.
“In all of the Sadie paintings, there is a salamander, the most complex living thing that regenerates its own organs, so scientists are studying this. Many animals had ability to regenerate but that was lost through the evolutionary process.
“If scientists could figure out how to unlock that, it would be the ideal thing for those people who need organs because there would be no rejection,” Chapman says.
The painting “X + Y = Z” includes a salamander, a symbol in many of the works about Sadie. (Gary Chapman)
An additional aspect of the Sadie paintings is the awareness it brings of organ donation for transplantation.
“It operates on many different levels. It is cathartic for me in dealing with all of this on a personal level. It is not just Sadie but more global, especially in the awareness of organ transplantation.
“Life During Wartime” is in the collection of the Huntsville Museum of Art. (Gary Chapman)
“Mother and Daughter” is oil on canvas. (Gary Chapman)
“Salamandria” deploys the salamander motif in many of the Sadie paintings. (Gary Chapman)
“Some of the paintings are inspired by COTA, the Children’s Organ Transplantation Association,” Chapman said. “People can give to COTA in Sadie’s name. We raised I think about $45,000. When Sadie passed there was still a good deal of money and it is distributed to the children still living.”
The most recent works in the Sadie paintings were inspired by a reading of the original Frankenstein novel.
“It is amazing how beautiful the original Frankenstein novel is. That was the impetus,” Chapman says.
“He” is oil, charcoal and graphite with found objects on aluminum panels. (Gary Chapman)
“SHE” is among the works memorializing the too-brief life of Sadie. (Gary Chapman)
To learn more about the art of Gary Chapman, visit garychapmanart.com. To learn more about the Children’s Organ Transplantation Association, visit cota.org.
This story originally appeared in B-Metro magazine.
