Lead Artist Judy Dewsbery observes:

Angie Braven designed this project largely featuring colour – her forte – on banners. When she became unavailable I took this forward as being able to find peace, to almost meditate on the power of colours. To be taken to another place, to be able to forget the problems of the day.

When I asked the group what it was that drew them to becoming involved, two said it was the subject of sanctuary (one has worked with asylum seekers), the others were interested in ‘doing something like this' for themselves, maybe taking on a challenge to do something they wouldn't normally do.

As colour was the basis, we went through the development of mixing colours using the 3 primary ‘process' colours, and black and white, using acrylic paint on paper first of all. I had decided to have the banners long and thin (4ft x 1ft), an unusual proportion perhaps, but one that encouraged a more abstract approach, maybe one that implies landscape without depicting detail. The paper strips were the same proportion and formed the basis of the approach to working on the banners themselves.

Some of the paper strips of gradation of colour were cut up and applied to strips of other colours. Everyone found it different working on a larger scale; some followed their miniatures fairly accurately, most ended up doing a second or third banner in free-style after gaining confidence to do so.

Everyone returned for the second session with the exception of two who had said from the start that they had holiday commitments.

The almost finished, often wet, banners were positioned on poles and taken to St Clements Church, where it was agreed quite quickly where to display them. We were all really impressed with the visual impact they made, and the surprising cohesion seeing as during the painting process the thing that had struck us most had been how different the work was from each person.

I have sewn the tabs on the banners and painted the broomsticks; the resulting display is due to the involvement of 9 wonderful people.