O'Halloran talking about cystic fibrosis for his wife's documentary about his double-lung transplant. courtesy: isola productions, tv ontario
UPDATED 12:30 PM EST
New Zealand glass artist Paul “Pauli” O’Halloran died on Tuesday, February 1st, after a lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis. Despite a life of breathing problems and struggling with worsening lung function, O’Halloran dedicated himself to the glass community as an artist, mentor, and friend.
Born and raised in New Zealand, O’Halloran defied expectations from an early age. His parents were told he would not live to adulthood, but he lived well beyond the average life expectancy for males with cystic fibrosis (31) and was among the oldest living survivors of cystic fibrosis in New Zealand when he died in his mid-forties. Despite the disease’s slow destruction of his lungs, O’Halloran dedicated himself to glassblowing.
He received a double long transplant in April 2006, which his wife Rachel, a filmmaker, chronicled in a documentary called Life, Death and a Lung Transplant (click here to see a clip of the documentary from TVOntario). A filmmaker for over 15 years, she turned the camera on her own family in case her husband did not survive long enough for his young children to remember him.
“Let us remember that every breath for Paul was an achievement and every glass work a milestone, a great guy who continued to encourage those of us with proper lungs in our comparatively pathetic moments,” wrote Claudia Borella, co-president of the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass (NZSAG) in a recent Glass Art Society newsletter. “Paul’s continuous efforts to encourage glass artists to share experiences and information, his steadfast willingness to organize international visiting artists such as Dante Marioni, Richard Marquis, Ben Edols, Tom Rowney, Preston Singletary, and Giles Bettison amongst assisting others more local to the scene by providing them employment and opportunity through hot shop access was and remains exemplary.”
O’Halloran is survived by his wife, son, and daughter. A funeral was held on Saturday, February 5th, at 1:30 PM at the Waikumete Cemetery in Aukland, New Zealand.
—Grace Duggan
EDITOR’S NOTE: The birth year of O’Halloran has been corrected from the original posting.