July

How strange that people who try to protect the Planet are called «activists» or «rebels», instead of «protectors» or «carers». Even stranger is that people who deliberately destroy the Planet are called «businessman» instead of «mass murders» or «planetary destroyers». 

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

July

Made by Mother Earth and Father Time, and Love. Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

July

"Particular attention should be paid to the material used, for good craftsmanship is built on natural foundations, and nature assures the material's quality. (...) When a certain locality is rich in a certain raw material, that material gives rise to a certain craftware. It is this resources, the gift of nature, that are the veritable mother of craftwork." Soetsu Yanagi (2018). The Beauty of Everyday Things.  

Photos by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

July

"When you can see yourself from outside, you contemplate existence with more humility and perceptiveness than when (...) you imagined yourself as the best self, your city as the best city, and what you called life as the only conceivable life." Rafael Argullol cited by Irene Vallejo (2022). Papyrus: the invention of books in the ancient world. Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

July

"It's a strange sort of pain. (...) To die of yearning for something you'll never experience." by Alessandro Baricco (1997). Silk. Painting: gouache and watercolour. June, 2023.

nearness, seasonality and sustainability

The plants used in my tapestries come from my little garden, are gathered during my walks, or collected during visits to friends and family homes. Some are used right after collection in order to maintain enough elasticity to be worked out. Others are used dried because they offer great flexibility or because they gain other affordances with time. 

Seasonality plays a special role in my tapestries. Not only because plants availability vary according to each month, but also because I like to use daylight when I make them. Each tapestry has the plants of the season and corresponding availability, embedded. If you observe attentively you can guess the seasons they crossed until closure. 

I like to think in sustainability like a verb. The process of discovering ways of make things with what is available. Weaving them into being otherness. Like plants that are considered «invasive». I find it a lack of imagination. A strange classification for bio materials that can thrive in desolate places. Surviving by themselves, without any kind of input or demand on our part, and with their qualities can be transformed in so many beautiful or useful things. 

Weaving the tapestries is a way of giving body (and soul) to my living framework of doing what I know, the best I can, with what I have, wherever I am.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

navetes

Navete ou lançadeira. Portuguese words used for shuttle. "A shuttle is a tool designed to neatly and compactly store a holder that carries the thread of the weft yarn while weaving with a loom. Shuttles are thrown or passed back and forth through the shed, between the yarn threads of the warp in order to weave in the weft. The simplest shuttles, known as "stick shuttles", are made from a flat, narrow piece of wood with notches on the ends to hold the weft yarn" ( Wikipedia ). 

In my tapestries I use repurposed ice cream sticks for the wool or cotton parts. For the plant parts it´s hands work, our best tool. Also in the photo, you can see two handmade wood needles, seldom used, but useful when needed more precision work.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).