Pat Simon
- Published: June 18, 2026
Patricia “Pat” Margaret (Hixson) Simon peacefully passed away on May 14, 2026, at her home in Yellow Springs, Ohio, at the age of 86 years. Her body was donated to Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine. An innovative artist, a loving mother, grandmother and wife, Pat left an immeasurable impact on the people closest to her and is dearly missed.
Pat is survived by her husband of 57 years, Wilford Simon; brother, Alonzo Hixson III (wife Marilyn); daughters, Gail Cyan (partner Rodney) and Jill Gubanich; grandchildren, Murphy (fiancee Kate), Sophia, Jasmine, Madelynn and Kristopher (wife Kristina); and great-grandchildren, Gavin and Adalynn.
Pat was born in Binghamton, New York, on Dec. 24, 1939, to the late Dorothy Hixson and her husband. She had fond memories of growing up in the family-owned Dorothea Dolls Company factory, a post WWII era business successfully run by her mother, producing stuffed dolls for children nationwide. She and her brother were the “creative directors” and designated quality control supervisors — playing with the dolls as their mother sewed and managed the assembly line. When the business ended, Pat moved with her family to Dayton, Ohio.
Pat graduated from Miami University with a Bachelor of Science degree in education. She started her career in Miamisburg and Dayton schools teaching primary school.
Pat met civilian Air Force analyst Wilford Simon at Pacemakers, a singles group that gathered at the Dayton YMCA. They married Nov. 24, 1968. Their daughters, Gail and Jill, were born soon after, and Pat left her teaching career to care for her children full time. She later used her education and experience to homeschool her daughters through late elementary and middle school.
In the 1970s, Pat initiated her artistic career, working her way through various media. Her early work featured graphic marker design and traditional watercolors, which then evolved into acrylic painting. She used heavy brushstrokes and thick applications to vividly capture movement, human emotion and the beauty of natural landscapes.
She painted the things she loved and the emotions she felt, healing past trauma and illustrating the joys of life with a meticulousness and creativity that powerfully rendered the subject.
As she moved through her career, Pat began to experiment with other innovative and unique artistic techniques. She added nontraditional collaged materials to her paintings, creating 3-D effects and contrasting textures. In one painting of a snowy mountain-river scene, she used metal and plastic shavings to show the turbulence and power of the landscape.
She was fascinated with opacity and light in her art. She began to experiment with what would become her signature “kited paintings,” an original technique of layering tissue paper, transparent photocopied collaged images, acrylic paint and media, all painted on freezer paper. Once dry, these paintings could be lifted off the two-dimensional surface and attached to three-dimensional armatures that were hung by fishing line and floated in the air. The results were a delicate film of swirling color that evoked stained glass, but soft and ethereal rather than sharp and faceted.
To highlight the effect and leverage the light, she incorporated the paintings into complex 3-D sculptures, primarily built from small wooden dowels and hot glue — this sculpture-making process was fascinating to her young grandchildren and often imitated, leading to many lopsided structures being built on the dining room table. The colorful translucent images transformed into floating sculptures, challenging the viewer to decipher the contrast of familiar collaged images, with the bold abstraction of light, color and movement. Pat’s “kited paintings” were the pinnacle of her artistic career that spanned 30 years.
Pat loved her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren immensely and often shared her art with them. She created individualized measuring boards to document their growth, ornately decorated with fabric, brass finishes, and flowing painted scenes of people and birds. The boards had pictures of close relatives and their corresponding height, so the child could realize with competitive joy when they were taller than the more diminutive members of the family.
She lived in Beavercreek for about 50 years before moving to Yellow Springs in December 2014 to be close to family.
At the end of Pat’s life, she leaned into the concept that life is like floating in the ocean, riding the highs and lows, keeping your head above water. Struggling with limited mobility, she always had a smile to share as she focused on loving her family. For years, each night at bedtime, she and her husband, Wilford, would sing to each other, “You Are My Sunshine.” Pat was the sunlight, even when the skies were gray.
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