Services planned for artist, supporter of the arts
A memorial service will be held Nov. 17 for Patricia “Pat” Lee Estill Bates, a long-time supporter of the arts and an accomplished artist, who died on Oct. 14 at age 92.
The 5:30 p.m. service will be at Los Poblanos Cultural Center, 4803 Rio Grande NW.
Bates was a founding organizer of the New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair, a cofounder of the now defunct Friends of Art, which raised funds for the University of New Mexico Art Museum, and a past president of the New Mexico Art League.
Bates was born in Tulsa, Okla., and received her associates degree from Gulf Park College in Gulfport, Miss. She later earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in studio art from the University of Oklahoma. She had been an active member of Kappa Alpha Theta and subsequently helped start a local chapter at the University of New Mexico.
In 1948, she moved to New Mexico with her husband, William “Bill” Colcord Bates, who ran the Bates Lumber Co. in the South Valley from the mid-1950s through the mid-1990s, according to their daughter Patricia “Dolly” Spragins of California. Bill Bates died in 2006.
In Albuquerque, Pat Bates studied art with a number of well known local artists, including Kenneth Adams, Clinton Adams, Raymond Johnson, Herb Goldman and Robert Ellis. Bates also earned her master’s degree in studio art from UNM during this time.
Bates, who painted mostly in oils, was known for her portraits and later still life and abstract material. While many of her works hang in people’s homes or are part of the UNM art collection, said Spragins, her mother did not display her art in galleries nor participate in shows.
“I think she had what you’d call performance anxiety, but she continued to paint most of her life and did a lot of teaching.”
Bates was also a Francophile and spent many summers in Paris studying art, said her daughter.
She was also part of a group of artists that included Betty Sabo and Ann Hebenstreit, who regularly recruited models to sit for them as they re-created the model’s figure in their respective mediums, Spragins said.
Sheilah Garcia, president of the Garcia Automotive Group, knew Bates since the late-1950s through their mutual involvement with Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. “We ended up living three blocks apart. Pat was kind of a Renaissance woman. She was interested in a lot of things and she was very talented.”
Garcia said she had the opportunity early on to see many of the portraits Bates painted. “The were more than just pictures. You could see in the paintings something of the person’s personality. She was good at capturing that.”
Garcia also called her friend funny, kind and intelligent. “She and her husband were always very stylish. When they walked into a room, everyone noticed.”
In the 1970s, Bates and her husband started Pawidol, a business selling fine Native American jewelry throughout the Southwest.
Bates was active in the Junior League of Albuquerque and taught art for a number of years to underserved children. She was also involved with the Camp Fire organization for girls.
In addition to her daughter, and her daughter’s husband, Pete Spragins, Bates is survived by her son, William Colcord Bates Jr. of Albuquerque; and grandchildren Peter Bates Spragins of California, and Elizabeth Lee Spragins of Virginia.
Donations can be sent to the University of New Mexico Art Museum, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131.