Material Intelligence

We are thrilled to announce the launch of a new Material Intelligence website along with the first featured material of 2026, Palm. We hope you’ll enjoy revisiting all the content from our material archive. This new user-friendly format makes it easy to navigate and share essays that explore and illuminate unexpected connections: between art and science, past and present, the tangible and the cultural. #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinemagazine #magazinecover #artmagazine #onlinepublication #publication #art #crafts #fineart #arthistory #history #journal #history

Material Intelligence’s first featured material of 2026 is here: 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐦 🌴 “Was the palm tree given to humankind by the Hand of God? Many people have thought so, seeing fingers in its distinctive fronds and an arm in its long, strong trunk. It’s not a coincidence that the same name—palm—is given to the fleshy interior of our hands.” Palm is now available to explore on our 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲, also launched today! Explore this remarkable material on a fresh, user-friendly site, and while you’re there, take a look back at previous materials with a fresh new look! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #digitaljournal #publication #art #crafts #palm #arthistory #history #onlinepublication #digitalpublication

This is Material Intelligence Magazine, an online publication from the Chipstone Foundation! Each issue takes a deep dive into one commonplace material, used in all kinds of making. Contributors from every discipline and walk of life come together to tell stories illuminating vital, sometimes unexpected connections: between art and science, history and contemporary life, the tangible and intangible. An offering to an increasingly digital age, Material Intelligence celebrates the human capacity to understand and shape the world around us. Join us for the journey! Each issue is free and available on our website, the link is in our bio! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinepublication #crafts #arthistory #design #fineart #conservation #history #art #materialscience #materialculture #contemporaryart #culture

Hello Material Intelligence readers! This month we are excited to revisit the material Nylon with Alison Kowalski’s new essay Nylon for the nonconformist. Kowalski explores how black nylon tights unexpectedly became synonymous with an unconventional brand of femininity. Read it via the link in our bio! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinemagazine #magazinecover #artmagazine #onlinepublication #publication #art #crafts #fineart #arthistory #history #journal #nylon #nylonstocking #ballet #balletstockings 📷 - Helanca advertisement in Seventeen, vol. 17, no. 10, (Oct 1958): 55. - Rendezvous with Noelle Adam. 21 January 1958, photo by Jack Garofalo/Paris Match via Getty Images; Editorial # 166459032; Collection: Paris Match Archive. /detail/news-photo/rendezvous-with-noelle-adam-21-janvier-1958-noëlle-adam-news-photo/166459032 - "Martha Graham and members of her company in her studio." Black and white photograph. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, 1952 - 1962. The New York Public Library Digital Collections, b12146482. .

“At the height of wicker mania (roughly 1880 to 1920), factories made thousands of forms for every occasion: chairs, étagères, bookcases, settees, tables, vanities, umbrella holders, coat racks, plant stands, clock cases, and much more. Their malleable construction—woven split fibers over a steam-bent wood or bamboo frame—made almost anything possible.” - Who’s Afraid of Wicker Furniture by Ashley E. Williams 🌴 Read more on our featured material, Palm via the link in our bio! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinemagazine #magazinecover #artmagazine #onlinepublication #publication #art #crafts #fineart #arthistory #history #journal #wicker #wickerchair #wickerart #palm #palmart #palmweaving #palmleaves 📷 - Blanche M. Osborne, Conservatory, Branford House, 1917. Photograph. University of Connecticut Photograph Collection, UC3-0637 IMG0072-1573. - A. H. Ordway and Company, Rocking chair, 1893. Beechwood, iron, and rattan. Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Schwartz, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Schwartz, 1976.110. Image from Yale University. - James Jacques Joseph Tissot, The Convalescent, ca. 1876. Oil on canvas. Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, UK. Purchased, 1949, SHEFM: VIS.2213. - Walker Evans, Untitled [Wicker Chair and Brick Ruin in Field, Rhode Island?], June 29, 1974. SX-70 Polaroid print. (image): 3 1/8 × 3 1/16 in.; (sheet): 4 1/4 × 3 7/16 in. Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Eliza Mabry and Jonathan Gibson, 2015.23.239. © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image from Yale University.

“Taken together, these uses suggest that palms in Central Africa far exceed the status of “tropical icons.” They are foundational, multi-purpose plant resources that surpass any single category or label. From a single family of species come cooking oil, drink, medicine, clothing, roofs, tools, and income – and, behind all that, a living structure that shelters animals and stabilizes soils. To follow these pathways is to see how deeply human life in the region is entangled with the palm: a not-quite-tree that behaves like one, and then some.” - A Tropical Toolkit by Vu Horwitz 🌴 Read more on our featured material, Palm via the link in our bio! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinemagazine #magazinecover #artmagazine #onlinepublication #publication #art #crafts #fineart #arthistory #history #journal #palm #palmart #palmweaving #palmleaves #africanpalm #coconut #coconutpalm #datepalm #oilpalm 📷 - W.F.P. Burton. Untitled. n.d. From Sketchbook 2. Wits Art Museum. Photographed by the author. - Congo, ca. 1920-1940. Photographic postcard. Yale Divinity Library Special Collections. Divinity School. Day Missions Library, OID 11455901. - Norman Hardy, Kuba woman embroidering raffia cloth, late 19th century. Watercolor and ink. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.

Lenore Tawney’s “Inquisition,” 1961. One of her breakthrough woven forms, for which she introduced diagonal vectors into the structure, producing an effect of expansion and contracting - like the flow of the river outside her studio window, or a meditative breathing in-and-out. It is made of natural and black-dyed linen, a material connection to the contemporaneous works of Agnes Martin, who was very close with Tawney at this time (literally, as they were neighbors in Coenties Slip). Kerr Houston explores this tangible connection in his newly published essay for Material Intelligence, “Agnes Martin’s Fields of Flax.” Free to read at link in profile. @materialintelligencemag @knmangan @alisonjacquesgallery #lenoretawney #agnesmartin Photo: Rich Maciejewski, 2018, courtesy of @jmkac

The “Panama hat” is an unfortunate misnomer for a quintessentially Ecuadorian craft: el sombrero de paja toquilla, a type of headgear that has shaded the faces of kings, emperors, presidents, and most importantly, countless generations of those who have toiled in the sun. The Ecuadorian Hat by Carolyn E. Herrera @aloeveraherrera 🌴 Read more on our featured material, Palm via the link in our bio! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinemagazine #magazinecover #artmagazine #onlinepublication #publication #art #crafts #fineart #arthistory #history #journal #palm #palmart #palmweaving #palmleaves #panamahat #sombrerodepajatoquilla #pajatoquilla #sombrerodepaja 📷 - A woman weaves a sombrero de paja toquilla in Montecristi, Manabí, Ecuador, 2017. Martha Barreno / VWPics / Alamy. - Carmen Columbia Delgado, hatmaker at the Pavilion of Ecuador, New York World's Fair, 1939-1940, ca. 1940. Photograph. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections. - Paja toquilla or “toquilla straw.” Blickwinkel / Koenig / Alamy. - Semi-finished sombreros de paja toquilla, 2017. Darya Ufimtseva / Alamy

We have an exciting announcement here at Material Intelligence. With the launch of our new website, we will be periodically publishing one-off essays that revisit past featured materials! This month we are excited to offer Kerr Houston’s reflection on Agnes Martin’s consequential switch from painting on a variety of surfaces – Masonite, paperboard, composition board, and cotton duck – to working primarily on linen canvas. Read more on our new website, Link is in our bio! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinemagazine #magazinecover #artmagazine #onlinepublication #publication #art #crafts #fineart #arthistory #history #journal #linen #agnesmartin #kerrhouston #linenart 📷 - Agnes Martin, The Islands, 1961. Oil and graphite on canvas. Private collection, New York. © Agnes Martin Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. - Agnes Martin, White Flower, 1960. Oil on canvas. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift of Lenore Tawney, 1963, 63.1653. © Agnes Martin Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. - Lenore Tawney, Inquisition (detail), 1961; linen; 138 x 28 in. Collection of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York. Photo: Rich Maciejewski, 2018, courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

"In 1510, the Italian traveler and diarist Ludovici de Varthena praised coconut water as ‘a most excellent thing to drink.’ At that date, even the most affluent Europeans barely knew what a coconut looked like, let alone had tasted its contents. Some, however, did see one of these exotic shells." Cuckoo for Coconuts by Kirstin Kennedy 🌴 Read more on our featured material, Palm via the link in our bio! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinemagazine #magazinecover #artmagazine #onlinepublication #publication #art #crafts #fineart #arthistory #history #journal #palm #palmart #Coconut #Coconutcups #coconutart 📷 - Sint-Servaaskerk, Schatkamer: zilveren reliekhouder (1693) met bewerkte kokosnoot Creative commons 4.0 Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. - Petrus Christus, A Goldsmith in his Shop, 1449. Oil on oak panel. (overall): 39 3/8 x 33 3/4 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Robert Lehman Collection, 1975, 1975.1.110. . - Flanders, Coconut cup and cover, ca. 1510–1600. Coconut, silver, and glass. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Bequeathed by Michael Wellby, 2012, WA2013.1.49. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

“In recent decades, the palm’s symbolic overuse as a signifier of “Arab culture” has contributed to its vulgarization, hollowing it of its original function as a source of sustenance and ecological balance. Palm trees are now deployed primarily as ornamental landscaping—lining highways, ceremonial boulevards, airport arrivals, artificial beaches, and roundabouts—basically everywhere apart from their native environments, which are themselves under increasing threat from rapid urbanization and climate change.” A New Oasis by Noura Al Sayeh @nouralsayeh 🌴 Read more on our featured material, Palm via the link in our bio! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinemagazine #magazinecover #artmagazine #onlinepublication #publication #art #crafts #fineart #arthistory #history #journal #palm #palmart 📷 - Mohammad Alfaraj, Fossils of Knowledge, 2019. Installation in the artist's farm in Al Hasa, Saudi Arabia. Courtesy of the artist. - Field of Palms and Chairs, building process and methodology with palm trees in the laboratory of Darat al-Funun, Amman. Photo by Lobna Sana, 2025. - Mohammad Alfaraj, Crawling Sands and Charcoal Dreams, 2025. Palm wood and trunks, ladder, and drawings with palm charcoal and palm frames. Installation as part of Riyadh Art week. Courtesy of the artist, Athr Gallery, and Mennour. - Mohammad Alfaraj, A Palm Tree Doesn’t Die, but Bows to Life Forever, 2018. Film photograph, inkjet print on rice paper. Part of “Seas are Sweet, Fish Tears are Salty” solo exhibition at Art Jameel center in Dubai, curated by Rotana Shaker. Courtesy of the artist, Athr Gallery, and Mennour.

“From antiquity to contemporary Christian devotion, palms weave a thread of continuity. Whether in the hands of professional artisans or lay parishioners, the act of folding and bending fronds into sacred images rich with evergreen symbolism upholds the legacy of a craft rooted in ancient culture and faith.” - Tree of Life, Tree of Faith by Samantha De Trillio 🌴 Read more on our featured material, Palm via the link in our bio! #materialintelligence #digitalmagazine #onlinemagazine #magazinecover #artmagazine #onlinepublication #publication #art #crafts #fineart #arthistory #history #journal #palm #palmart #palmweaving #palmleaves 📷 - courtesy of Parmureli. ©Ermanno D’Andrea