Community Corner
Libertyville Author Raises Funds for Colon Cancer Research
Barbara Sellers honors her mother, a watercolor artist, while helping raise awareness for the disease that took her life.
Barbara Sellers' mother was always an artist at heart. The Libertyville resident, remembers growing up in Illinois with her mother painting in oils and taking art classes, until her parents moved to southern California in 1975, where Sellers’ mother began her work in watercolors.
“Her paintings really focus on the West Coast, the Newport Beach area, Orange County, Arizona — Sedona especially,” Sellers explained. “They’re so colorful, they’re so mesmerizing.”
Sellers describes her mother as an outgoing, giving, and positive person who believed in mind over matter and rarely went to the doctor. Because of this, Sellers' mother didn’t realize she had colon cancer until it was too late.
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“When she was diagnosed, she was stage four,” Sellers said. “They gave her like six months to live, but she lived another two years.”
Sellers' mother died of colon cancer in 2004.
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Honoring Mom Through Book
“I always told her, ‘To honor you, I’m going to do a book and a website about you and your paintings,’ ” she said. “So minus my printing costs, everything is going to colon cancer research.”
In 2010, Sellers began working on the book, My Mother’s Watercolors, a compilation of photos and prints of 117 paintings by Sellers' mother Gail.
Using her books to raise money for charity is not new for Sellers. .
She also has raised money for Grahn Community Center in Kentucky, a low-income area ravaged by floods in 2010, and the Olive Hill Historical Society in Kentucky, where many of her grandfather’s artifacts have been restored and displayed.
Raising Awareness of Colon Cancer
“I think this is a great way to honor my mother and another good way to get people more aware of colon cancer,” she said.
in Libertyville is selling My Mother’s Watercolors as well as prints of Gail’s paintings. In addition, the book and prints are available at Barbara’s website www.GailSellersWatercolors.com.
Sellers hopes to reach out to colon cancer awareness groups in Illinois as well as in her mother’s southern California area, to help sell the book and raise further awareness of the disease.
