The Art Room at Triune Mercy Center offers free supplies and an open door
Inside the Art Room at Triune Mercy Center, a parishioner was working on a sculpture close to home, so to speak. It looked a little like a dollhouse, and stored safely in the room, kept growing each time she visited. A clothesline in the yard, a couple of lawn chairs, all fashioned out of whatever materials were on the table that week. The woman making it also happened to be unhoused, and one day she revealed to Dalphine Woodward—who coordinates the space—her inspiration.
“I’ll never forget the moment she said, ‘This is a manifestation of me getting housing,’” says Woodward. Not long after that, the very same parishioner secured housing with the help of another Greenville initiative, but the support she received from the Art Room, made possible by Premier Arts Collective, came first.
All across the city and on Triune’s second floor, PAC uses the arts as a vehicle of healing and hope across programs for veterans, rehabilitation patients, survivors, and underserved youth. PAC took over stewardship of the Art Room in September 2023 after it closed for lack of volunteers, and now opens it Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon, free to anyone.
“Anybody means everybody,” says Logan Rice, PAC’s director of events and programs. “We see three-year-old artists all the way up to 93-year-old kids. Thousands of people have been welcomed in since 2024, to create, write, or even take a free art workshop, which we host through an initiative with Judson Community Partnership.”
Playground for the heart
Courtney Chandler, Founder of HeARTS for Hope Therapy, sees the Art Room as a “playground for the heart.” Chandler led art therapy sessions in the space for years, alongside Music Therapist Alison Hughey. “I was continually moved by the authentic connections that unfolded there among people of all ages and walks of life,” she says. “There is something vulnerable about creating and allowing what you have made to be witnessed by another person, and something equally meaningful about witnessing someone else through what they make. Creativity doesn’t ask us to have the right words or the answers, but it offers another way to know ourselves and one another, and to connect with something profoundly human and healing.”
And if you’re expecting dried inks or broken pastel crayons, you’ll be surprised. Thanks to generous donors, the supplies are pristine and the canvases blank. “We don’t want to create a perception that someone isn’t worthy of new brushes,” Rice says.
There’s something quiet, yet significant, that you might also notice: Dignity on display. “When you live out of a backpack or a shopping cart, art is one more thing to carry and one more thing to lose,” reflects Woodward. So she and the volunteers frame visitors’ work and hang it on the walls, giving it a home. “And that gives them a sense of ownership,” she continues. “They have something to come back to, which can change your mind frame if all is lost. More than anything, I want people to feel respected and honored.”
Woodward knows the gift of the room all too well: When a single payroll error led to an untimely eviction that had Woodward and her son living out of hotels for a while, a friend told her about a room where she could just sit and be among community. “You don’t have to do anything here,” a volunteer shares. “All you have to do is be and breathe.” Woodward came back every Wednesday and Saturday until the room became an anchor, then turned into a fulfilling job.
Recently, a mother living in a shelter came in with an eight-year-old and infant twins. Woodward held the babies so mother and daughter could make something together. The daughter couldn’t take her painting back to a cot, so it went on the wall, and she came back to see it, again and again. “This place provides respite,” says Woodward with heartfelt conviction. “You can come in and paint, write poetry, or simply be still in time. It changed my life for the better.”
Ways to support Triune Mercy Center Art Room
Volunteer | Contact dalphine@premierartscollective.com
Make a Donation | Visit premierartscollective.com/give
Give Art Supplies | Contact logan@premierartscollective.com
Visit and Enjoy | Open Wed + Sat 9am-12pm; 222 Rutherford Street, Greenville, 2nd floor
