June

Gardening "brought me as much joy" as "places I've travelled to further in the world". It is "like an expansion of life rather than a retreat from it" Alice Vincent (2024). Why Women Grow.  Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) May 23, 2026.

maximizing life

A new tapestry is starting. Engaging with existing materials. Sorting them. Collecting newly available ones from the garden. Feeling. Shaping. Smelling. Disposing old ones as mulch, as seeds for new growth and as food for birds and ants. Letting her play. All part of a new cycle of abundance to be weaved. To create new territories where all terrestrials can exist and play a role. Photos by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) May 2026.

May

"Throughout history, textiles (...) allow our subconscious to intuit a vast range of concepts (...) and speak to our ability to grasp these ideas. Weaving is something we share as humans." Maarit Saloleinen (2024) Interwoven. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) May 2026.

May

“War is a disease of humanity. There is no better healing than peace.” Read in The Conduit. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) May 2026.

sequel

The tapestry finished in May is the sequel to «Connected», "covering very different ground and ending up in unanticipated places", behind the mountain on the upper left side of last year's tapestry.

While reading the transformative book The Entanglement by Alva Noë, the weaving of this new tapestry gained a new direction, opening up new meanings along a line of questions that I had been avoiding. Perhaps the tapestries were not about nature, but more about finding myself within nature. 

Photo of part of the tapestry «Interconnected» (102 x 82 cm) by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC), May 2026.

May

"Artworks afford an opportunity for us to catch ourselves in the act of (...) bringing the world itself, or the artwork, into focus for consciousness. Art makes the aesthetic an opportunity for investigation and at the same time it makes us such an opportunity (...) Artworks are not mere triggers. They stage us". Alva Noë (2025). The Entanglement: how Art and Philosophy make us what we are.

Fotografia captada na exposição de José Pedro Croft «Reflexos, Enclaves, Desvios», no Museu de Arte Contemporânea (MAC), do Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB).

May

"Art is our most direct grappling with the aesthetic reality of our own nature and that of nature itself. Art is the achievement of the tree and the achievement of our relation to the tree. Art is the invention of seeing, and the invention of language". Alva Noë (2025). The Entanglement. How Art & Philosophy make us what we are. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) Maio 2026.

May

"We are not cameras. Eye, head, neck, body, movement. We see with all that, and then only thanks to our impulses, curiosity, feelings, and drive. (...) The world shows up to consciousness (...) not as in here, as represented, but rather, as available, as within reach." Alva Noë (2025). The Entanglement: how Art & Philosophy make us what we are. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) Maio 2026.

Sustainable processes

In my tapestries I use cotton and wool that I do not produce. But most materials are dead plants, seeds, bark and a lot of other plentiful and available materials from nearby gardens and spaces. I've been working dutifully on this sustainable process. Ways that do not produce rubbish or pollutants (including noise, a great nuisance). When people come to see my tapestries I talk about the process and how the spoils from my tapestries are fed back to my plants. 

There are no chemicals or artificial products used or created during the treatment or the use of the materials I collect. Time is one of the most important aspects. It's a slow, hand made process. The materials are at the core of my work. They are not bough in a store and are not available from a catalog. They are made from what nature gives and prepared to be weaved (images below). The color pallet varies with the materials' availability. Not according to my wishes. Beyond art, what if our policies could embed this sustainable guiding principles? What would work and life be?

 

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) May 2026.

April

"(...) the notion that there are benefits to sitting on the edge between order and disorder, and hence having adaptative power, rings true in our everyday lives." Neil Johnson (2009). Simply Complexity. A clear guide to complexity theory. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) March 2026.

April

"(...) the art we tend to find most interesting is also in that middle-ground between complete order and complete disorder - in other words, between being completely boring and completely unintelligible." Neil Johnson (2009). Simply Complexity. A clear guide to complexity theory.. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) March 2026.

March

"The medium and the message remain the same; only the rules change from one system to the other. Adjust the feedback loops, and a new type of community appears on the screen." Steven Johnson (2001). Emergence: the connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) March 2026. [Changed image, March 31, 2026. Included text in April 1, 2026]

March

"Emergent behaviors (...) are all about living within the boundaries defined by rules, but also using that space to create something greater than the sum of its parts." Steven Johnson (2001). Emergence: the connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software. Photos by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) March 2026.

March

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) March 2026.

February

"Our world flits between contingency and convergence, providing the illusion of structure and order, until one tiny adjustment changes everything. (...) Nature makes a random mistake, or a contingent deviation, and, poof, you've got a new kind of beetle." Brian Klaas (2025). Fluke: chance, chaos, and why everything we do matters. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) February 2026.

February

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) February 2026.

February

"To erect the framework for flourishing, we need a reliable superstructure that provides for our basic needs, a bulwark against a precarious survival. What we don't need is a society that regularly gets upended by major systemwide shocks that jerk us in undesirable directions, ripping us out of the present to worry about our existential future (...) and democracies collapse." Brian Klaas (2025). Fluke: chance, chaos, and why everything we do matters. Photo of tapestry with map behind by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) February 2026.

January

“You cling to a thread of hope, of course you do. But in the face of the blunt instruments of silence and nothingness, the shadow of hope grows ever fainter.” Haruki Murakami (2025). The city and its uncertain walls. [20260314 update] Tapestries. Bottom, middle «Consciousness» (73 x 80 cm), January 2026, by Monica Pinheiro. 

January

 

"(...) remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the tentrillion things in this single garment of destiny that as been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed". Rebecca Solnit (2025). No Straight Road Takes You There. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) December 2025.