Joan Miro, artist extraordinaire

Joan Miro, who ded in 1983 aged 90, is one of my favourite artists. 

This Spanish (Catalan) Surrealist artist worked across many fields, from painting to collage to tapestry to ceramic to metal sculpture, and his ideas were radical for the times. He declared "an assassination of painting", and rejected the conventional painting style. 

His minimalist works have a dream-like quality, with small elements in vast space.

Seen at the Miro Foundation, Barcelona - http://www.fundaciomiro-bcn.org/

Black & white porcelain - Heather Bell

These slipcast porcelain vessels have inlaid black & white panels. They are unglazed, but polished after bisc firing, and again after firing to 1260 degrees Celsius, with fine grade wet & dry sandpaper to give a velvety surface.

Diamond pattern stone wall

Diagonally built rock wall in Korea – it looked very old, but its diamond pattern, from the unusual stacking of the stone blocks, made it stand out.

Metal sculpture in Sydney's Botanic Gardens

I saw this sculpture in Sydney’s botanic gardens – it looks like a cactus skeleton, with its delicate tracery of  filigree metal – ideal for the dry garden.

I looked, but couldn’t find the artist’s name.

Porcelain pod flasks - Heather Bell

These bottles with stoppers are small enough to wear as pendants. They're made from porcelain: textured, stained,  polished, fired and repolished, then fitted with stoppers.

People are often surprised that they're hollow as they look like smooth, worn river pebbles.

Lake Wainamu at Te Henga/Bethell's Beach

An amazing place - deep black ironsand dunes behind Te Henga/Bethell's Beach enclose a fresh water lake (in the distance) and this river which carries the lake run-off to the sea - intense greens in the bush, purple-blues in the water, and subtle shades of charcoal grey.

Below - patterns in the sand crust. There was also an area of sand with scattered pieces of stone which looked like prehistoric  tools  - does anyone know about the human history of this area?

Porcelain wave bowl - Heather Bell

Although I generally choose to hand-build my work - I prefer the asymmetry of hand-built creations to the regularity of thrown pots - this was one throwing exercise whose results I still enjoy. 

I threw then turned the bowl, leaving quite a thick wall at the base.  Then I painted a layer of resist onto the bone dry clay, and eroded the non-resisted surface by sponging. It's easy to go too far - seeing daylight through a hole in the wall is one indicator; but also if the clay gets too thin, the weight of the remaining clay above can cause it to distort or collapse during firing - in what's called the pyroplastic stage.

 This piece is clear glazed, and overhead lighting shows its translucency.