POSTER GIRL
Meet the unintentional star of the dreamy new Dell Children’s Medical Center art installation
Zoë: “I wasn’t scared.” (Pause.) Zoë: “Yes, the first time I went to the hospital, I was a little nervous. But after all the other times, it was: ‘OK, we’re doing this.’” Sarah: “She’s a good soldier ,a nurse’s favorite. And she’s funny.” Zoë: “That’s what I’m known for.”
Seated in an airy room at the new Dell Medical School, slender, pert Zoë Morehead, 9, and her plainspoken mother, Sarah O’Brien, recount their many trips to Dell Children’s Medical Center, where Zoë was treated, most often for acute asthma.
Until the doctors found something alarming. More on that later.
It so happens that on this sunny day, Zoë is the poster child, literally, for the first portion of a threebuilding art installation at the medical school. During Zoë’s interview with this reporter, Ann Hamilton, a distinguished Ohio-based multimedia artist, was seated behind a long table downstairs, signing fat, free books that go with the art project — “One-everyone, 2017” — which presents cloudy images of scores of Austinites, Zoë among them.
A line of the large portraits on enamel looms beyond her in the lobby.
Sarah: “Seeing Zoë’s photograph is bittersweet because I remember the stress and the worry and fear when she was in the hospital. But it turned into
this beautiful thing.” The daughter of Sarah O’Brien, a rigging and warehouse designer for the lighting company Ilios, and Dennis Morehead, Army retired, Zoë attends St. Francis Catholic School. Someday, she would like to join the FBI or maybe become an herbalist. She spends a lot of time fossil hunting and plant collecting.
In spring 2012, she suffered a major asthma attack and was rushed to Dell Children’s MedicalC enter. Zoë: “I felt so yucky. I went to the hospital and threw up on Mom’s back at the front desk.” Sarah: “I remember that.” Zoë: “My stepdad brought me a bag of toys and blankets and all my things from home. At one point, blood was covering me.” (She giggles.)