Helena (Peters) Mulligan: An Artist’s Life

“It was a dream I didn’t really know I had.”

When Helena (Peters) Mulligan found herself in need of a mid-life change, she found it by enrolling in the Visual Arts Program at Northwestern Polytechnic. That decision has led to a decades-long artistic practice that has included sculpture, print-making, pottery, drawing and painting.

NWP students will be familiar with two of Helena’s sculptures that enrich our Grande Prairie campus. Wisdom, found near the lower front entrance, was the winning entry in the (now discontinued) Art in the Park student art competition. Helena remembers her work being selected as a highlight of her time in the program. The nine abstract figures include a tall central sculpture which represents a teacher or wise elder, with the surrounding forms looking up to it. 

“They needed to be free of race and gender,” Helena explains. “I wanted everybody to be able to relate to them, no matter who they are.”

For NWP’s 35th anniversary, Helena was commissioned to return to campus to create another sculpture, located inside the main entrance. The Invitation depicts three figures, with the smallest turning to look directly at the viewer. “It’s saying, ‘Why don’t you join?’” she describes, noting that the piece is meant to depict a sense of community.

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Helena, now in her 70s, recalls her time at NWP fondly. She relocated from High Level to study at the school when she was in her mid-forties, and although many of her classmates were similar in age to her children, Helena felt very comfortable in the Visual Arts program. “I loved being with other artists making art,” she says.

It was not the first time that Helena took a leap back into the classroom. Born into a Mennonite family with nine brothers and seven sisters, Helena left school at age 15. “Dad said education was important, but Mother needed help with the babies,” she explains. So when her children entered school, Helena went back to complete her own high school diploma. She followed that with training to teach adult literacy, and worked at Fairview College in High Level before moving to Grande Prairie to study art in 1992.

Helena’s life as an artist has included numerous exhibitions and commissions and her work can be found in collections around the Peace region. She has shared her skills as a teacher in Grande Prairie and in 1999, during an artist’s exchange in Sudan and Kenya. While Helena has moved away from sculpture, she continues to paint and draw. “It kind of puzzles me why people think that I should only do sculpture,” she laughs.

Her advice to students considering visual arts today: “Take it in a heartbeat!” Helena speaks highly of the instructors who taught her, including artists Merv Bielish, Lionel Allingham and Christine Christos.

Helena’s creativity extends throughout other areas of her life. “Sewing is like breathing to me,” she says. Her skills include everything from making and altering wedding dresses to repairing RV awnings and trampolines. Lately, she’s been enjoying dance classes at the seniors housing in Clairmont where she and her husband recently moved. Helena also published an autobiography in 2020, the story of how she overcame overwhelming obstacles through her faith and courage.

Helena’s life shows no shortage of courage. From returning to school twice as an adult, to developing her artistic talents across a lifetime, Helena is an inspiring example to her children, grandchildren and four great-grandsons. “I always ask myself, what if I can?” she says – and her life clearly illustrates that Helena can do whatever she sets her mind to.