By Marcus Uhe
13-year-old Cranbourne puzzle enthusiast Antonio Ghazarian is ready to put his passion for puzzles to the test at the Victorian State Jigsaw Puzzle Competition on Saturday 9 April.
Antonio has been completing jigsaws since he was three, starting with small 20-piece puzzles before working his way up through the hundreds, and by age nine he was onto 1000-piece puzzles.
His favourite designs detail the Marvel superheroes such as Spider-Man, Iron Man and Captain America.
Antonio’s mother Rita signed him up to the Australian Jigsaw Puzzle Association at the beginning of the year and this weekend’s competition will be the first of its kind in Victoria.
“He had puzzles of all sorts all over my lounge room floor,” Ms Ghazarian said.
“I wasn’t allowed to move them once they were finished, I had to move them when he wasn’t home.
“As soon as he got home, he would do them again.”
Since moving into his teenage years, Antonio has moved from the floor to the dining room table, where he can have up to six 1000-piece puzzles on the go at once, and often on-top of one-another, to add another layer of complexity.
The more intricate and detailed the design, the more he enjoys them, according to his mother, who outlined his unorthodox methods.
“Most people when they do puzzles put the border together and work their way inwards.
“He will take parts of puzzle, put them together individually and then bring the whole piece together at the end.
“He doesn’t do it the easy way.”
Antonio suffers from pre-verbal autism, meaning he struggles to communicate verbally and uses his iPad or pictures to interact, and attends Dandenong Valley Special Development School in Narre Warren.
The competition happens to coincide with World Autism Awareness Month, and Saturday 2 April was World Autism Awareness/Acceptance Day.
Ms Ghazarian said completing jigsaws has been a great way to control his emotions.
“It’s definitely calmed him down a lot.
“We used to get a lot of yelling and screaming and he thought he couldn’t regulate emotions by himself.
“If he gets anxiety or triggered, he goes to his puzzles and it calms him right down.
“It’s a similar thing with music, pianos and puzzles have helped him tremendously.”
Antonio will compete in the partners competition alongside Rita where they will be required to complete a 1000-piece design in three hours, comfortably within Antonio’s capabilities, his mother said.
But for Rita, it will be a case of hands-off.
“He doesn’t let us touch them.
“We’re not allowed to help him unless he asks, but we’re still not allowed to put a piece in for him. We can only make suggestions.”
Best of all, the competitors will get to take the specially designed, competition exclusive puzzle home with them, meaning Antonio’s collection will continue to grow.
The Victorian State Jigsaw Competition will take place on Sunday 9 April at the Malvern Town Hall at 1251 High Street, Malvern.
