Collaging Workshop with Hazel Pitt - Sarah Merton, Go & See Microbusary 2025-26
03/04/2026 | Author: Sarah Merton
As an early career art for wellbeing practitioner, I was looking forward to spending time in the studio with Hazel Pitt. Hazel is not only an accomplished analogue collage artist, but a seasoned advocate for the collage medium’s therapeutic components. Boasting over 30 years of experience, she has worked as a counsellor and taught in higher education. A creative yet compassionate career vested in championing collage as a fun creative stimulus to deliver that all important ‘wellbeing factor.’ This has included harnessing art to alleviate anxiety and engage with neurodivergent children, plus support adults who have experienced a stroke.
Art is so often exclusively framed through an elitist lens where gatekeepers decide “who” is privileged enough to participate. Or ‘Art’ with a capital ‘A’ is routinely enshrined within a syllabus for exclusive study as an academic "serious" subject. I hoped to observe how Hazel worked to overcome these attitudinal barriers and class-based obstacles such as imposter syndrome, which deny people from diverse demographics from accessing art’s wellbeing benefits. This project was immensely important to my own grassroots community outreach because Hazel wisely recognises art as a ‘fantastic therapeutic tool’ and not simply a commodified product hung on gallery walls. Her refreshingly inclusive delivery demeanor is ethically grounded in highlighting there is no need to be “good” at art. As I witnessed, in Hazel’s wellbeing-orientated approach - there are no rules and there is most certainly no judgement. Interactions with art are not limited to those of a scholarly nature; after all, images are not merely studied to cram for exams, but to find out who I am.
I went along to a Collaging Workshop led by Hazel Pitt. An evening session which took place at Lichfield Guildhall and was organised by the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum. This class was held on 19th February 2026 between 6:00pm – 9:00pm. Nine women participants attended. By pulling up a chair at her craft table, I witnessed firsthand how Hazel created a safe space for expressive experiment and permitted individual creative license to flourish. There was very little expert-led ‘teacher talk’ transmitted from down the front like some sage-on-the-stage specialist who talks at attendees. This tired top-down lecture model was nowhere to be seen. Likewise, so was old school suppressive shushing and stifling straitjacket silences. Hazel deftly engineered an engaging environment wherein peer-to-peer interactions were dialogic and collaborative. Chatter and colour filled the portrait-lined room at Lichfield Guildhall.
Without a row of chairs in sight, we all gathered around a table where everybody could face one another. Eye contact and a steady stream of conversation could be maintained with ease. An important takeaway aspect for me was realising that for many participants, socialisation and gaining access to stimulating conversation remained their underlying rationale. The night was joyously deemed by some as ‘getting together with the girls.’ Reinforcing how connecting with someone, as opposed to creating something, can often be an overarching motivating factor. I saw firsthand how cutting by hand, reverting to analogue paper crafts, puts us back in touch with ourselves and others. Group collaging enabled this integrative communion allowing physical and tactile engagement with the arts amidst our screen-heavy, contactless and increasingly computerised societies.
Attending the Collaging Workshop under Hazel’s experienced facilitation allowed me to appreciate art beyond a ‘technique’ to be ‘mastered.’ A broadening recalibration in professional outlook occurred from just watching her work and witnessing all the joyously playful participant responses. Nobody was playing to the gallery – they were simply playing. On reflection, attendance imbued a renewed appreciation that play is not solely for early years service users; from a welfare angle, adults need play too and can benefit from tearing and sharing collages.
New insight was imparted through observing how Hazel’s sessions were dutifully and diligently structured, yet not suffocatingly so. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to artmaking and Hazel’s activities were not overbearingly standardised. She made room for subjective personalisation and contextualization when applying paper making techniques. In fact, Hazel’s collage workshop gave an entirely new meaning to ‘let it rip’ as the tactile tearing of pages proved highly cathartic and allowed participants to get to grips with their emotive states. Feelings and connectivity could be channeled.
For example, I have always admired as a feminist collagist myself how picture production can generate a protest space; one woman made a collage channeling her fury and a shared sense of trauma in response to the unequal and abusive treatment of women within the patriarchal society. Overall, attending artists were importantly granted the agency to independently make their own choices about what mattered to them when cutting out print matter from stacks of ‘image rich’ magazine materials. Although Hazel conceded how we were ‘time bound’ - as any group leader must adhere to booking requirements - she prioritised carving out room for creative freedom within her planning cycles. I learned the impactful notion of ‘meditative cutting’ from Hazel, whereby art for wellbeing practitioners steer focus more towards self-exploratory reflective creative process than producing some polished palpable end product.
Woman-to-woman, as an early career working-class arts for wellbeing practitioner, I wholly benefitted from attending Hazel Pitt’s Collaging Workshop. Moving forward, Hazel made me see that one of the joys of our shared collage medium is its entry level accessibility. Not to mention its portability, in a practical and logistical sense, because as a facilitator you can set up shop amidst a myriad bustling people-facing grassroots locations such as libraries with minimum fuss.
You do not need expensive head shots or a voice coach to become a collage artist. There is a humble and non-intimidating essence to cutting and sticking yet collaging remains an enduringly respected artform. In a risk adverse financial landscape characterised by callous funding cuts, institutional decision and policy makers should realise that small investments in craft can make a big difference to people’s lives.
By Sarah Merton
With thanks to:
