The Greenhouse paper tapestry artworks began as a series of large collaborative paintings created with patients in The Greenhouse psychiatric ward. Each week we worked together on large sheets of paper in a chosen colour, exploring how that colour made us feel and noticing the many tones and varying shades within it.

The art-making was meditative, calm, engaging, focused, joyful, and experimental. It encouraged connection and gave participants agency - the freedom to participate, which materials to use, and how to use them.

Working together on collaborative paper removed the pressure of facing a blank page alone or creating something “good” that felt solely your own. Knowing the artworks would eventually be torn into strips for weaving made it even less daunting. The focus shifted entirely to process over outcome.

When we had a collection of artworks in a range of colours, they were ripped into narrow strips and woven together by hand transforming the colour explorations into rainbow tapestries - representative of shared moments, play and the harmony of working together.

Through tearing and weaving, the work embraces impermanence and the beauty found in reconstruction - light, dark, hope, and connection.