Leafiness — living shapes us all

Kia ora. Welcome. My name is Rhona Orr, and I weave leaves.

My woven leaf art — Leafiness — focuses on the beauty and resilience of leaves. By choosing leaves with scars, marks, and holes that have grown into unique shapes and colours, I aim to celebrate wabi-sabi and kintsugi philosophies, allowing a comparison between the lives of the leaves and the viewer.

This art has also evolved into another project I have called The Resilient Leaf, which explores whether botanical art can help create a more supportive, engaging, and comfortable environment for people in care, especially for those living with compromised brain health, such as dementia.

Background

My lovely Dad lives in a care facility as he has vascular dementia. His strong preference for my green leaf art, rather than yellow, orange, or red leaves, was the catalyst for me to research why. My Dad's friends in the care facility also preferred the green leaf art. Feedback from people who have bought my art has also described feeling calm when viewing it — a sentiment that mirrors my own meditative state when I weave leaves. Again, why?

My background is in intelligence, analysis, data, and design rather than formal academia, so I have used my skills and AI to look more closely at what makes some leaf art more suitable than others for environments like my Dad's. I'm using existing published research from relevant fields to inform what I make and to identify potential risks.

This has moved me away from creating random 'pretty art' in different sizes. I am now developing and testing leaf art with greater consideration of the person, the environment, the artwork and how they interact.

I don't have a team or funding — just a desire to make clinical and care spaces feel more welcoming and provide interest. As someone who has spent time as a patient in hospital, I know first-hand what it is like to stare at a blank wall for days.

Resilient Leaf framework

The Resilient Leaf framework aims to help create care environments that are more supportive, engaging and comfortable for the people living within them.

I use the 10 Principles of Dementia-Enabling Design to inform how I think about the person, the environment and the artwork. These include reducing risks and unhelpful stimulation, providing human scale and visibility, optimising helpful stimulation, supporting movement and engagement, and creating links to identity and community.

I have developed a structured, iterative process for assessing my leaf art before considering it for environments such as my Dad's care facility. The process uses published research to inform what I make and to consider factors such as visual characteristics, familiarity, colour, scale, placement and potential sources of confusion or visual discomfort. As I learn more, I review what I previously thought, test what I can, observe what happens and change the approach where necessary. Where research does not provide an answer, I identify this as something that needs to be tested rather than assuming an effect.

I have received positive feedback and encouragement on The Resilient Leaf project from environmental dementia experts Professor Richard Fleming, Kirsty Bennett and Dr Joanna Sun. Professor Fleming wrote:

"Kirsty, Jo and I have looked at your materials with great interest and wish to encourage you to continue exploring how your art can assist people living with dementia... We can only encourage you to keep on with your interesting work which has value irrespective of its links with the Dignity Manifesto principle." Professor Fleming.

As I learn more about the research informing this project, I share some of what I am learning with others through the Instagram clips below. Click on the images to watch.

Hypothesis

Can personally selected botanical art contribute to more supportive, engaging and comfortable environments for people living with compromised brain health?

Research across environmental psychology, dementia-enabling design, visual perception and arts-in-health informs the Resilient Leaf. I bring this knowledge together with my own botanical art practice to explore how leaf art might be used within care environments. The work bridges simplicity with foveal interest, vibrant colors, white space to rest the eye, and weathered, scarred leaves as a celebration of resilience.

This has led me to explore three different ways botanical art might support people and their environments:

Patient-centred choice: Exploring whether leaf art selected by a resident for their own bedroom can provide a personally meaningful visual feature within their environment. The artwork is mounted at an accessible height and remains stationary, providing a consistent visual reference point.
Circadian leaf art: Exploring how larger botanical artworks interact with natural daylight and dynamic lighting in common areas. The aim is to investigate whether the combination of artwork and changing light can contribute to an appropriate visual environment across the day. Any effect on sleep, circadian rhythms or sundowning would need to be tested rather than assumed.
Spatial orientation and wayfinding: Exploring whether distinct botanical artworks can act as visual landmarks within care environments and contribute to orientation and wayfinding.

Visual safety is an important consideration when developing leaf art for care environments. I use a structured visual screening process to look for potentially unsettling face-like, predatory, staring or otherwise ambiguous forms. I also view the artwork at different rotations to check whether unintended forms become apparent. This is a project-developed screening process, not a clinically validated safety test.

Timeline

July 2026: Joined the Blue Bell Club as a contributing artist and can now be found at the shop one afternoon a week.
August 2026: Selected for the Friends of Pātaka art competition, Porirua.
May 2026: Supportive feedback received from leading dementia-environment experts.
April 2026: With an artist friend, we started the Instagram page Porirua Art & Coffee.

As The Resilient Leaf has developed, I have learned how important community and connection are to me, to people living with dementia, and to the project. I hope these connections will eventually become part of an exhibition in their own right.

March 2026: Dad and I teamed up for a group exhibition, combining my woven leaf art with his poetry about leaves and living with dementia. Pātaka Art + Museum, Porirua.
Janurary 2026: Dual exhibtion at the A-Gallery in Whanganui.
May 2025: The 2024 award led to a solo exhibition, Leafiness — living shapes us all, at Pātaka Art + Museum, Porirua.

What might be dismissed as an imperfect leaf is re-contextualised as a visual story of adaptability and endurance. A leaf shows all its experiences: nibbled by insects, ripped by the wind, torn by trimmers, shaded from the sun or exposed to the elements. In response, leaves adapt and transform into unique shapes, textures and colours.

Leaves persevere through these experiences. This visual, honest expression of how life experiences alter leaves fascinates me. As I collect leaves, I am drawn to those that, like many of us, have lived complex and sometimes difficult lives. I capture their adaptability and vibrancy before they fade, celebrating the endurance and interconnectedness of all life.

2024: Winner of Best Newcomer at the Friends of Pātaka competition, Porirua.

The Resilient Leaf, my Leafiness art and I are still evolving. I don't know exactly where this will lead, but I am enjoying finding out.

If you'd like to talk about the project, collaborate, find out more, or have some leaf art made from your own trees, please contact me.

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