Windows Through the Seasons is a participatory artwork project shaped through shared reflection, creativity and connection. Local people were invited to offer thoughts, images, memories and sensory impressions connected to the seasons, contributing to a collective body of material gathered during a community event on 17th January 2026.
The project was conceived and led by me in response to a commission from Chorlton Civic Society and the Green Chorlton Hub. The contributions shared on the day will inform four final panels, created in a collage style on canvas and later reproduced onto weatherproof clear acrylic. The finished pieces will be displayed in a wooden frame at four points across the year in the community garden next to Chorlton Library, starting with Spring, revealed on Saturday 21st March at 11.30am, and then changing with each season.
Read on to see how this day of participatory creativity and connection took shape, with the wonderful ideas, energy and support of Stories of Our Lives and other key partners.
Below, you can see the style and approach I’m taking with this mock up of a previous collage, as if transfered onto clear acrylic and set into a frame.
On the 6th January, two weeks before the public session, our group met to reflect together. We did not start by planning activities, instead we started with ourselves. We talked about the seasons as we experience them in real life, what we notice, what we value, and what we return to year after year. From those conversations, ideas and inspiration emerged. Someone suggested a reading corner. Many talked about how each season is interconnected. Suggestions of sensory details and close looking came along with ideas of how we could use objects, poems and the senses to share this joy with others. Someone shared inspiration from Japanese micro-seasons, and we adapted that thinking in ways that made sense in the North West of England.
You can see many of the volunteers in action on the day below. Thank you to Nat Winrow for taking all the pictures shown of the day.
I responded to the group’s ideas by creating a structure and resources. Then generous volunteers and helpers each took on a role: seasonal table hosts, a central collage lead, someone dedicated to photography, people supporting children’s creative writing and making, a brew maker, a greeter, and others helping visitors find the community space. The volunteers also offereed to bring a range of exciting items to create a sensory experience of the seasons and bring nature indoors. The library staff supported the planning and practicalities with care. Members of the local civic society and the community garden not only trusted the process but also showed up and contributed. It all felt like a shared effort, rooted in relationship and place.
On the morning of the event, me and my lovely husband Pat (whose 50th birthday was that very day!) got to the space early to set it up in zones: four seasonal tables, a central making table, a reading corner, a sound station, and a quieter second community room. Then, objects, books, prompts, scents and textures arrived with the group. They arranged them with care, there to spark attention rather than overwhelm it. Feedback was that the tables felt “rich but not cluttered.”
People of all ages arrived gradually. Some started making and writing straight away. Some hovered and watched first. Children moved easily between drawing, cutting and sticking. Adults chatted, laughed, and paused mid-conversation to sketch or write. The sound in the room stayed relatively gentle considering the amount of people involved: conversation, laughter, quiet moments, the scratch of pens on paper, scissors cutting, pages turning. At the sound station, people stood still with headphones on, listening closely. Someone said it was an “industrious, serious kind of play”, the kind you see when people are in flow with each other and their creativity.
What people offered from this sense of flow was specific and grounded. Autumn appeared as dry leaves underfoot, “brown and red and yellow and black”. Someone wrote about tasting the season. Another described autumn as “a feast for the eyes”, with reds, oranges and golds painting the world. Winter filled with shade, shadow, frost, bare branches, birds, brown and grey, and purple hues. Scents appeared too in people’s notes: cinnamon, nutmeg, eucalyptus. There were thoughts about movement and stillness, stability and change. Embodied memories of important people, places and moments emerged through the time spent creating and reflecting.
Images were drawn and redrawn without much discussion, people too absorbed in making to need outside input. Some wrote full sentences. Some left fragments. Some drew. Some talked and asked someone else to scribe. All of it wove together to make a “wonderful, welcoming atmosphere.”
The quieter second room made a real difference. Parents shared how it “allowed their children to take part in a way that worked for them”. Others used it simply to slow down whilst listening to this playlist suggested by a group member.
Across both spaces, conversations unfolded easily between people who had not met before. One person wrote about enjoying sitting quietly within the “creative, peaceful hubbub” and feeling “a sense of community alive and well”.
This session reached beyond our usual circle. New people came closer. Emails were shared, books were sold and conversations continued as people packed up. It felt like we were planting new seeds for the future of not just our group, but the creativity within us all to blossom.
By the end of the session, the seasonal boxes were full. Full of words, drawings, notes and memories that I am excited to use in the collages. A shared pool of material, gathered with care.
The hosting group remained after the participants left. We gathered and shared some words – saying we were happy, grateful, tired and satified and there was an overall sense of a job well done.
Leading the day was stretching, and it showed me how much becomes possible when a clear structure is held collectively by a capable, caring group.
Windows Through the Seasons now continues in my making of the final artwork, which will live in the community garden next to the library. The collages are being shaped directly from what was gathered on the day: the words, drawings, fragments, colours and sensory notes people offered so freely. The first panel is due to be unveiled in spring, on 21 March.
A deep and sincere thank you to everyone who helped make it happen as beautifully as it did, with special mention to Stories of Our Lives members Anne, Babs, Helen, Karen, Jane A, Jane G, Jean B, Jean T, Jude, Lucy, Margaret, Pauline and Patrick for your ideas and help on the day. Thanks also, to all the other group members for your ongoing support and involvement. Additionally, thank you to Nat for the beautiful photography, Pat for patiently transporting so much stuff as well as setting up and packing down with me, Chorlton Civic Society and Green Chorlton Hub for making this all possible, the wonderful Library staff for your support as well as everyone else who came on the day and gave your time, care, chat and creativity. I am excited to see what emerges, fuelled by your inspiration and energy!
Read on to see some of the beautiful pieces written and created by contributors. If I’ve missed anything, please feel free to email me at jolene.joyethic@gmail.com. We would also love to read your thoughts on the day, or on what’s been shared here, in the comments below.
SPRING
Spring
Spring is when the plants start to sprout and pop.
They emerge from the ground and come to life.
The trees are whispering,
it’s time to wake up.
The birds are calling,
hurry, it’s spring.
“Perce-neige”
I like the French name for snowdrops,
piercing the snow.
They look so fragile,
but they are strong and persistent,
heralding the spring.
Inspirational.
I look forward to hearing the birds in spring,
seeing the first shoots,
and noticing the change in temperature.
Spring has come
It was a week before my daughter’s first birthday.
I went for a walk and saw the flowers blooming,
the quiet awakening of life.
Motherhood had taken me on a journey
that felt far from the life I had before,
but these flowers reminded me of the season
my daughter was born into,
youthful, blossoming, ready for life.
I realised I had been standing, staring,
in front of a stranger’s garden.
A man had been watching for a while.
Embarrassed, I apologised
and told him how the flowers reminded me of my daughter.
Without hesitation,
he broke off a few flowering branches and said,
“Here, take them to your daughter.”
I was deeply touched by his kindness.
Many years later, I still remember
that simple act, every spring.
I pray he blossoms throughout his life.
SUMMER
Summer
Different greens everywhere.
Leaves full and confident.
Movement in the branches,
insects humming,
air alive.
Nests hidden in hedges,
spiders spinning quietly,
birds resting, then fledging.
There is shade and shelter,
and a feeling of fullness.
Life is busy, layered, abundant.
Everything feels held,
growing without urgency,
becoming what it already knows how to be.
AUTUMN
Colour covers the ground
brown, red, yellow,
green and black.
Leaves dry, brown and crusty
rustle under my feet.
Their smell fills my nostrils.
I watch,
feel,
smell,
listen.
I stick my tongue out,
breathe in,
taste the autumn.
A feast for the eyes
as reds, oranges and golds
paint the world around.
My favourite time of year.
It inspires me.
Autumn notes and impressions
Different greens,
movement slowing.
Grey in the shade,
a sense of stability.
Leaves spiralling,
spiralled,
falling.
WINTER
Winter
There’s a circle of oak in my garden.
At this time of year, their leaves are brown and brittle,
still holding on to the branches,
waiting until the buds burst into green.
The leaves that have fallen,
on the windy side of the circle,
are mulching into muddy, yucky, sludgy humus,
becoming soil.
Trees are producers and seeders of life,
even when they look dead.
Under the mulch, green shoots of bulbs
my partner planted are pushing through.
We are weaving a wall of old sticks and raspberry canes
to make a small art space.
We sit on a free garden sofa from a neighbour,
slowly rotting.
Chickens nearby.
We watch the days grow longer,
and the robin’s song lifts something hopeful.
Everything is mulching,
dying,
turning green again.
Reborn.
There is sadness in the endings.
There is joy among the rosemary.
There is silence in the moonlight.
Winter notes and impressions
White.
Cinnamon and nutmeg.
Tall spaces closing in,
wide views.
Eucalyptus, camphor, turpentine.
Shade and shadow.
Frosted mornings.
Wind moving through bare branches.
Brown and grey,
with flashes of green and red,
purple hues beneath the surface.
The Stories of Our Lives 