Shari Bartok

With greatest love and deepest sorrow, the Bartok Family mourns the passing of their beloved sister and aunt, Shari Bartok, aged 63, in Ligonier, Pennsylvania at her home called Dayspring, in Laurel Mountain Park where she'd lived for a number of years. Shari had a brilliant mind, an incredibly generous heart, and a fierce passion for the arts of all kind: literature (Shakespeare, Sophocles, Kafka, Rilke, William Blake), music (David Bowie), painting, film, American history and more. Most of all she was fiercely devoted to her family, and especially to her late mother, conceptual artist / painter / avant garde filmmaker LeAnn Bartok who passed away in 2001.

Shari was born March 18, 1961 at the Fort Ord military hospital in Monterey County, California - and according to family lore, she had a habit of eating garden snails in the back yard as a small girl. After her family relocated to Pennsylvania in the middle 1960s, Shari grew up in the Pittsburgh suburbs - with a brief period spent in North Bay, Ontario, Canada circa 1970-71 - and became a much-loved older sister to her young brothers Mark (1962-2021), Dennis (b. 1965) and especially Jayce (b. 1972), who she helped raise in many ways and with much love. She graduated from Churchill (now Woodland Hills) High School in Pittsburgh and later attended New York University where she studied creative writing. She was a striking and instantly recognizable figure on the streets of Soho and the Village in New York City in the 1980s in her vintage outfits and bright red hair, and loved attending art openings by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Mapplethorpe and other. She worked in the music industry for a time in the mid-1980s at Harry Fox Agency and Billboard Magazine, but transitioned to caretaking for her artist mother LeAnn as her mom's health declined. After her mother's death in 2001, Shari relocated to her mother's former art studio in Ligonier where she lived by herself, enjoying visits with a certain cat - one that became her beloved pet named 'Mo', the turtles on the front porch, the occasional mole in a Planter's Peanut jar, and the "broken-legged deer" who wandered into her yard every year.

She enjoyed Thanksgivings at Seven Springs, the ski resort, with her beloved nephew, Jaxon, often bringing a whole air hockey table and pogo sticks for Jaxon -- which must've certainly terrified the hotel guests as he went hopping around the hallways with the Lights' children Alden, John, & Ari. She enjoyed numerous trips to Philadelphia exploring historical sites with Jaxon, Jayce & Tiffany, even a trip to Mount Vernon. Her love of American history was known far and wide with the numerous George Washington re-enactors she befriended. She was proud to attend and help organize her brother Mark's funeral in New York City; and is known amongst the waiters of the area for her love of hot tea - needing numerous re-fills of hot water, lemons, and chocolate cake. She was always up for an adventure, even when her health got frailer, and was always a phone call away for the people she loved dearly - Jaxon, Jayce, Tiffany, Lynn, Jerry, Dennis, Marja, Sandor, and her nieces in France, Claire & Marguerite - no matter what time, night or day.

Shari was a devout member of the Baha'i Faith for all of her life, and was still an active and much-loved member of the Baha'i Community in Burbank (Los Angeles), where she will be deeply missed by her friends.

She's survived by her brother Jayce, wife Tiffany and their son Jaxon in Brooklyn, NY; brother Dennis, wife Marja and son Sandor in California; and by her nieces Claire and Marguerite Wilchusky in France, along with her great friends Phil & Gladys Light and their children and grandchildren.

"Hear Me, ye mortal birds! In the Rose-Garden of changeless splendour a Flower hath begun to bloom, compared to which every other flower is but a thorn, and before the brightness of Whose glory the very essence of beauty must pale and wither." - from the Baha'i writings.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the family to help with funeral costs.