The healing power of creativity
Síofra Grant
Helium, a charity dedicated to improving the wellbeing of children with long term illnesses through art and creativity, hosted ‘Let them Make Art’ in September, an exhibition that included work by Owen Petticrew, a Mullingar native and student at Galway University.
A member of Helium since he was 12, Owen has sat on the Youth Advisory Group since 2019. The charity is an important part of his life, he says.
Owen submitted a photograph depicting the ‘Master Sword’ from the Legend of Zelda franchise. The setting and the sword were completely made from Lego, but that is not the most impressive part.
What stands out most as Owen discusses his work is the perseverance and endurance that went into capturing that perfect shot.
“I’m a type one diabetic, I also have other conditions that aren’t necessarily long term illnesses.
“In the last year I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I’m also on the spectrum as well.
“As I said when I was speaking, Helium made me want to improve my health, because for a long time I struggled to control it.”
Over the summer Owen was facing an intense struggle with his diabetes. “I was really sick, I wasn’t well at all. There were days I wouldn’t get out of bed,” he recalls.
“I set about making the piece because I was replaying some of the Zelda games. “Arguably the darkest one, Twilight Princess,” he joked.
Owen’s artistic medium of choice is photography, particularly toy photography, and the photo in the exhibition formed part of his recovery this summer. “It’s therapeutic. It might sound silly but it’s something that makes me feel okay when I’m not feeling great.”
The Master Sword part of the Zelda Games is something that has always stood out to Owen. He explains that the particular scene moved him and sparked that moment of creativity.
“I saw the Master Sword in that game sitting there and it just sparked something in me to want to make that.
“Despite how I was feeling, despite the protests of my partner and my friends that I should be resting, I went off and made something.
“I spent the next six hours setting up the shot, taking loads of pictures with different lighting and everything.
“Then taking that, bringing it into Photoshop and sitting for the next 10 hours editing it and refining it, getting it perfect. That’s my process, but it’s something I can do when I’m not well because it lets me do everything at my pace.”
The control Owen gleans from the creative process is important for him. For someone whose life is often out of his control, due to his health and appointments he has to attend, photography gives him a sense of order.
Owen was impressed by the submissions of his fellow Helium members, in varying mediums, styles and perspectives.
“There was Ciara’s, a blackout poetry piece – she filled in the leaflet that came with her medication.
“Everyone that submitted work said that it helped them to focus on something. A common theme was the repetitiveness and the sitting, and that just doing something that helped them and feel a little better about themselves.”
Owen has nothing but praise for Helium and the friends he’s made on what he affectionately calls, “the YAG” and the efforts made to accommodate everyone’s needs.
“Everyone may have a different condition,” he said, “we support each other in really interesting ways.
“The support we have is brilliant, if for instance we are talking about something somebody doesn’t want to participate in because the topic might be upsetting, we always have the option to say, ‘I need to step out’.”
Owen saw that through the variety of pieces displayed at the exhibition, “There was a similar thing occurring where all of the work was completely different approaches to the same brief, I adored it.”