Creativity is good for mental health, says Kildare artist
Lesley Kelly at the exhibition with her piece 'Chasing Aeroplanes'
BEING able to express their creativity can be an important element in the mental health of young people, according to a Kilcullen art teacher who is currently exhibiting her own work at one of the most prestigious art events on the island of Ireland.
“It’s terribly important that they have their creative outlet,” says Lesley Kelly, who teaches at Cross and Passion College. “It can support both their well-being and their problem-solving abilities. It doesn’t have to be in the arts that I teach; it can be in music, or woodwork, or whichever form their creativity takes.”
Lesley’s own favourite art form is ceramics, and her latest work, ‘Chasing Aeroplanes’, was accepted for the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts annual exhibition, running from last week until January 2027 at the Royal Ulster Museum, Belfast.
The exhibition, one of Northern Ireland’s most prominent art shows, attracts up to 100,000 visitors. Lesley’s piece, produced in earthenware clay and glaze, combines traditional craft methods with contemporary design. Her process involves creating paper models, shaping clay ribbons and applying unique glaze scripts, culminating in a meticulously crafted and fired artwork.
To be part of the RUA exhibition is, she says, “just amazing”.
“It is hugely important because of the exposure, with so many people coming to view the exhibition during its run. It is also amazing to have my work sitting beside that of some of the island’s top artists, and just to be in the same room as them.”
It is easily the biggest exhibition she has been in since she graduated from the National College of Art and Design, where she did her Master’s in 2011. These have included local and national events, notably the Made Local 2024 campaign two years ago in the Dublin Municipal Theatre at Smock Alley, organised by the Design and Craft Council of Ireland.
The title of ‘Chasing Aeroplanes’ comes from a phrase she heard, meaning that someone is chasing something beyond themselves, that they have no hope of catching.
“It’s a metaphor for the fact that you really need to validate yourself before you start looking for validation from other people and other things. It’s about self-belief, finding yourself.”
The form of the piece itself reflects this, in how it flows up and down and around, always coming back on itself.
Lesley describes her art as ‘problem solving’, because she uses it to work out her thoughts about something that occurs in her life or in the wider world that she needs to process. “So I make a piece that helps me resolve that, and I’ll try to work out a solution by using the clay. A finished piece is to me a resolution of the issue.”
She knows that any creative work is never static, that the person making art, or music or craftwork is always moving forward. And regardless of the level of success of previous work, that results in a tension, an anxiety, that they are going into an unknown every time they begin again. The issue of believing in yourself keeps coming back.
“Yes, it’s like a continuous roundabout situation where you are presented with a different problem and you have to find the solution to it. You have to go through all that process all over again, learning to believe in yourself.”
Looking to her students at Cross and Passion College, she says those in her classes are there because they have selected the subject and have a love for it. “When they are setting out, it is incredibly important that they have that love for it. Some go on to study it at third level, whether through fine arts, photography or product design.
“Having that outlet allows them to creatively make their way around the world. Basically, they look at the world completely differently, and everything is about problem solving and finding solutions, and they are not fazed by issues that other people might have, because they can work it out in a creative way.”
While Lesley was at the opening of the exhibition in the Royal Ulster Museum, she didn’t get to see all the other exhibits, so she’s promised herself that she’ll go back before Christmas.
