Young mother’s cancer fight inspires artists
30 women to work together on tribute that will hang at Ottawa Hospital
Jillian O’Connor’s story — a young mother diagnosed with terminal cancer while pregnant — is heartbreaking, and it has moved many people in Ottawa and beyond to try to help her family. Now a group of female artists, inspired by Jillian’s plight and courage, is creating a large, maternal work to calm and inspire women who are fighting cancer.
“It’s the iconic thing,” says organizer Catherine Landry.
“Women in tribes around the world have forever and a day always come together to help when a woman needs help.”
The 30 Ottawa-area artists will create a large, multimedia work entitled Mother & Child, which will be donated to the Ottawa Hospital, where Jillian is being treated. The piece will be created Feb. 21 during Hot Potato, a pre-scheduled fundraiser for the Ottawa Food Bank, to be held at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Jillian is a 31-year-old nurse and on Feb. 1 gave birth to a son, Declan, who was born healthy despite the intensive chemotherapy that was needed to keep his mother alive during the pregnancy. It’s the third child for Jillian and her husband, David.
Jillian is now receiving intensive treatment at the Ottawa Hospital “with the goal,” as an earlier Citizen report explained, “of giving her as much time with her new baby and his two siblings as possible.” Currently, the young mother has been given two years to live.
She has no disability insurance, as she was off work on maternity leave when diagnosed with cancer. David has been working 12-hour shifts to support the family. A fundraiser for the family set up on the website gofundme.com has raised (as of 5 p.m. Sunday) more than $92,000, and many offers to help in other ways have been made.
The list of 30 participants who will create Mother & Child includes well-known artists in the city, such as Heidi Conrod, Sarah Lake, Katerina Mertikas, Crystal Beshara and more than two dozen others. The artists will form into 12 groups, and each will complete a small panel to be part of the finished work. At 11:30 p.m. during the event, the panels will be put together to create one seven-foot-by-six-foot, mixedmedia work that will show a mother embracing her child.
The Ottawa Hospital has agreed to accept the work, which will hang in a suitable location to be seen by other women who are in the hospital for treatment, and by people who are there to visit patients. “And then Declan, when he gets older, will be able to see it as a legacy to his mom,” Landry adds.
One job that remains is to find a paint sponsor, Landry says. The artists need about $600 worth of paint, and will donate any unused materials to a children’s arts group. Potential sponsors can email bigbeat@ottawacitizen.com.