Mosaics as totems

Helen has been exploring totemic shapes by combining terracotta pots and layering them with mosaics.

This (pictured left) is an early piece.

I get to do some of the tile cutting.

Once I get around to it and start mastering the cement sculpturing techniques I think we may be looking at a garden with a few object d'artzy. I do the shaping and Helen the covering and colouring.

The challenge of mozaics -- too fiddly for me -- is using cut tiles in mixes of patterns and colours as well as other materials, especially broken crockery. 

Using smashed china is called Pique assiette.

Concrete Art : Outsider Art

Helen Elizabeth Martins -
'Outsider' Artist, South Africa

Believe it or not I am also a sculptor with, in my estimation at least, some  interesting pieces to my credit. I used to make wearable performance face masks from moulds I formed  from clay and my puppets were great little avatars. My Punch series is special to me-- my children -- working puppets they were too -- with moi as Professor Ratbaggy.

Ah the joys of working the booth...!

Ironically I always wanted to create items that could sit out in all weathers but that is not an easy thing to do outside of chiselling stone and forging in bronze. Since I did work in the cement industry for a time way back making house fornations and bridge pillons I've yeaned for the techniques to turn the mix of aggregate and cement into identifiable shapes.

Well, this book,  Concrete Ornaments for the Garden: Making Pots, Planters, Birdbaths, Sculpture and More -- more so than Sherri Warner Hunter's earlier volume --does that. It's a DIY bible for lime types like me.

 Sherri Warner Hunter

If you are caught up in a passion for  Antoni Gaudi as I am you know that shape can be mozaiced if it stands still long enough. His Park Güell is an ode to the plasticity of concrete coloured up.

Here in Australia the great draughtsman and humorist, Norman Lindsay  explored cement sculptor in his garden at Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains , west of Sydney.

And then there is the magical world of concrete sculpture gardens created within the exotic community of self taught  Outsider Art gardens   which turn a penchant  for form on its head.

So, to make a long story short --sharing the know how as this volume by Hunter does is a really hands on plus.

It also helps if your partner is a mozaic artist -- as my Missus is -- looking for surfaces to color up.