On Sunday, a private jet flying from Austin to the Bahamas crashed in Palm Beach, Florida. The nine people on board were all killed.
One of the victims was Helen Sharp, a 40-year-old PR professional and ceramicist, who was flying with her husband, Adam Robinson; their children, Emma and Charlie; their friends, Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr; and their children’s nanny, Anita Maria Cetina.
Based on accounts from friends, family, and fellow artists who knew her, Helen Sharp was a talented ceramics artist, a world traveler, a loving mother and wife, and a beloved friend.
“Helen embodied a life well lived,” said a statement posted on her ceramics Instagram page on behalf of friends and family. “She embraced the world, made beautiful things, built lasting relationships, and loved her people fiercely. “
She graduated from the University of Arizona
Sharp grew up in Houston and attended the University of Arizona.
According to a tribute Facebook post from the University of Arizona School of Art, she graduated in 2009 with a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a focus in art history and anthropology.
She traveled the world
Her LinkedIn showed that she spent time in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as an ESL teacher from 2008 to 2009 and in Taipei, Taiwan, as a writer and editor from 2013 to 2014.
“I left my family, friends, and everything I knew to be alone — to grow up away from society as I knew it,” she wrote in an Instagram post in November 2025 about her time in Taiwan. “My isolation and regrowth were pivotal to my development as an adult.”
According to her LinkedIn, she returned to Argentina in 2015, where she worked for several years, first as a business development manager and then as an account executive.
It was in Buenos Aires that she “met the love of her life, Adam,” the Instagram statement said.
She made a career in public relations
In 2019, Sharp founded her own boutique public relations agency, Influential PR, which focused on sustainable and mission-driven brands.
She announced in May 2024 that her close friend of 20 years, Molly Ford Leibowitz, would be joining Influential PR as COO and partner.
She had a love for ceramics and opened her own studio
Sharp had a self-professed “lifelong love for clay” which started when she first touched clay in kindergarten.
Sharp posted on LinkedIn in February that she had started her own ceramics studio in Aspen, and that Leibowitz would continue to run Influential PR.
“Helen was incredibly ambitious, talented, and a light to be around,” Texas-based ceramic artist Rebeca Proctor commented on Instagram.
Proctor told Business Insider that she and Sharp were family friends growing up in Houston and became closer when Sharp began taking a class at the community pottery studio Proctor owned.
At the time, Proctor recalled, Sharp was in the third trimester of her pregnancy with her son Charlie, whom she called her “miracle baby.”
“I remember her coming into the studio, very pregnant, just glowing and beaming with joy, working on this huge piece,” Proctor recalled. “She was incredibly strong though, and determined, but also knew when to accept help. We were all amazed by her.”
Sharp went on to pursue her goal of having a successful career as a ceramics artist, taking workshops with artists such as Austin Coudriet, Paul Briggs, and Bari Ziperstein.
Proctor remembered Sharp as being humble and ready to learn.
“I think in every part of her life, Helen had a vision, and she would always see it through, even through challenges — which, in ceramics, there are many!”
She was beloved in the ceramics community and beyond
After the tragedy, tributes to Sharp and her family flooded in.
“She was my ceramics sister,” a fellow ceramics artist commented on Instagram. “I can’t even say how much her just being her inspired me to be the woman I am today, and to believe in my own power and talent and the possibilities in front of me.”
“She had this beautiful ability to turn any moment into something fun, to make people laugh, and to make even an ordinary day feel special,” wrote another commenter, who said he’d met Sharp in Argentina and hired her.
Bari Ziperstein, one of the artists Sharp had learned from, commented, “I’m in total shock! What a loss for the ceramic community & all that she was building.”
She loved her children and family
Sharp was remembered as having been deeply devoted to her family and husband.
“Helen and Adam were the love affair that will last forever,” the families’ joint statement read.
The Instagram post on her ceramics account remembered her and Robinson having “built a life rooted in family, adventure and love.”
“Her happiest place was next to Adam and their two beautiful children, along with their dog Bonnie, who was always by her side (and usually in her lap),” it continued.
“She was a wonderful mother and an incredible person who lived life to the fullest,” Proctor told Business Insider.
