September

“Merely assuming that information and communication technology (ICT) would foster the spread of democracy was clearly a failed strategy. (…) The gradual erosion of democracy in our time is being accelerated by the growing, unaccountable power of technology companies (…) Undermining principles have practical consequences (…) Tech’s metastatic and unchecked growth has resulted in real-world violence, instability, and division.” Marietje Schaake (2024). The Tech Coup: How to save democracy from Silicon Valley. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC), September 5, 2025.

Sustainable prosperity

«A shift towards an economy of care, craft and creativity (...) is not just about the quality of public services or the possibility of creating decent employment. It's a direct answer to the search for a sustainable prosperity. The quest for the good life. To the desire to live well - within the limits of a finite planet.» Tim Jackson (2025). The Care Economy. 

Photo of tapestry «Connected» (81 x 91 cm) by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC). August 2025.

Garden design as Art

"(...) bear in mind that garden design as it is studied by the one nation which really understands it - the Japanese - takes many years of serious application to reach perfection. It is a very high art". Frances Wolseley (1919). Gardens: their form and design. Found and suggested by paula simoes' blog. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC), July 13, 2025.

PS - The Countryman's Log Book

July

“The will to touch reality” and all the “beings within it was as simple as the urge to breathe, and breathe together”. The Tree was right. “After all, one cannot hesitate when it comes to breathing. And one learns that breathing in difficult times is something that requires” other beings “to help you do it properly”. Ece Temelkuran (2025). Together: a Manifesto against a Heartless world. Foto Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC), June 23, 2025.

Equinox

A new cycle begins. “(…) it’s about as full circle as it gets. (…) One day at a time, and suddenly you realize life is brighter, life is lighter. You made it through the storm” (Dunbar, 2024), except, other entities bully your neighbors, make them suffer, threaten them, persecute them, injure them, kill them and destroy everything. And in the end, they hope to live happily and securely ever after? Is this the implosion of humanity, cause surely it is not a vision for a better world...

Lucy Claire Dunbar (2024). The Book of Gifts. Fotografia de Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC), março de 2025.

PS - Banda sonora pode ser a que li no que Flora Graham escreveu no Nature Briefing de 11 de fevereiro de 2025, sobre o músico Cosmo Sheldrake (com Nature) que ajudou investigadores a registar «the wonderful, wet and complex” sounds of the fungi and other organisms in the soil, in the words of evolutionary biologist and co-author Toby Kiers»: soil.

January

“(…) my story bleeds through from my cover into the real world, a message from a parallel universe revealed through graphic design and visual creativity. My cover is the shadow on Plato’s cave wall, a hint of the truth and imagination hidden within. When you look at me, I am designed to make you want to open the lid and let my stories escape through your gaze, diving through your eyes into your mind, where they can live and breed anew. I’m only a book. Hold me.” Robert Klanten, Mathias Hubnel and Andrew Losowsky (2013). Fully Booked. Photo of tapestry on the making (belonging to «404 Humanity not found» serie), by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC). January, 2025.

September

"Because it is always tempting to over emphasize autonomy and independence, these helpless creatures are here to remind us that no one is, in the end, 'self-made'; we are all heavily in someone's debt. We realize that life depends - quite literally - on the capacity for love. (...) All this she will later forget and they will be unable or unwilling to convey to her." Alain de Botton (2017). The Course of Love. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC). September 6, 2024.

Solstice

I've been discovering more affordances for the materials that nature (and people) offer me. At this time of the year there is an abundance of colours, textures, forms, and smells to choose from. They open up many possibilities for creation. Marking the Solstice, I finished the weaving of the last tapestry, prepared the loom weft and started the initial selection of natural materials for the next work. 

Suzane Simard's book Finding the Mother Tree as been traveling with me. In it, I just discover that if you cut the leader shoot "the pines won't know how to grow toward the sky". 

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) June 20,  2024.

Biodiversity

«Biodiversity is the driver of the farm. If I'm asked "What do you grow?", I say "Biodiversity". The vegetables are a by-product. (...) What I'm trying to do here is to copy the forest." To make farming work, "we need to restore a forest soil ecology, aligning farming with the original ecosystem. (...) Small farmers around the world are seeking such solutions, and have come together to build a global agroecology movement." George Monbiot (2023). Regenesis: Feeding the World without devouring the Planet. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) May 12, 2024.

April

"When you tape into the arts to foster a meditative state, the places in your brain responsible for judgment and personal criticism are quieted in your prefrontal cortex, and you can assess a more generous, perspective-taking point of view." Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross (2023). Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. Obra de Cruz-Filipe. Exposição Modo de Ver na Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. 

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).

October

"There are certain fundamental rules that all ecosystems must follow. Energy, usually harnessed in from sunlight or, rarely, from the breakdown of minerals, must flow into the ecosystem to replace what is lost through activity and decay. The organisms that can access this energy are the producers, and those that cannot are the consumers, feeding on other living things in order to survive.” Thomas Halliday (2022). Otherlands: A World in the Making. Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

September

"Cloth can come from plants (cotton, linen), animals (sheep, silkworm), and, since the nineteenth century, from synthetic material and processes, namely plant-derived celulose liquefied and then extruded into strands (rayon) and various chemical recombinations of petroleum (nylon, spandex, polyester)." Sofi Thanhauser (2022). Worn: A People's History of Clothing. Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

September

"Because digital minimalists spend so much less time connected than their peers, its easy to think of their lifestyles as extreme, but the minimalists would argue that this perception is backward: what's extreme is how much time everyone else spends staring at their screens." Cal Newport (2020). Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

The last layer

"Whereas labour involves care and sustenance, work is the domain of creation and creativity. It calls on craft and skill and vision. It is about the dreaming of dreams and the making of things." Tim Jackson (2021). Post Growth: Life After Capitalism. Tapestry (July 2022). 

Photo of tapestry (80 x 102 cm) by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

July

"Is art resistance? Can you plant a garden to stop a war? It depends how you think about time. It depends what you think a seed does, if it’s tossed into fertile soil. But it seems to me that whatever else you do, it’s worth tending to paradise, however you define it and wherever it arises." Olivia Laing cited in Maria Popova «Gardening as Resistance: Notes on Building Paradise». Makes me want to read the book Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency (2021). Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

"Uma imagem, pintada, esculpida, fotografada, construída e emoldurada, é igualmente um palco, o local para uma encenação. O que o artista põe nesse local e o que o espectador vê encenado nele, empresta à imagem uma qualidade dramática, como se fosse capaz de prolongar a existência através de uma história cujo início o espectador perdeu e cujo final o artista desconhece." Alberto Manguel (2020). Ler Imagens: em que pensamos quando olhamos para arte.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro (STP20220527). License CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

"The spaces in which we can enjoy privacy have shrunk. We need consciously to create privacy zones in order to claw back some areas in which creativity and freedom can take flight unimpeded.” Carissa Véliz (2020). Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data. Picture taken Abril 3, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro. You are free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

"Some big tech became big by plundering our data without asking for permission (…) we were told that it was necessary for our gadgets to keep on working as they do (…).” Although “[w]e know that it is possible to have cutting-edge tech gadgets without privacy invasions.” Carissa Véliz (2020). Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data. Photo taken Abril 3, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

"The history of rights is, to a large extent, the history of progressively recognizing that human beings are not resources to exploit, but individuals to respect." Carissa Véliz (2020). Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data. Image: «Forest in the City», Abril 8, 2022, by Monica Pinheiro. You are free to use it if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).