Mar Menor lagoon
— the sea the sea kept on the wrong side of the sand.
Not only on a wall.
Mar Menor lagoon, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“Mar Menor is a saltwater lagoon on the Spanish Mediterranean coast in the region of Murcia, separated from the open sea by La Manga, a sand spit about twenty-two kilometres long and at no point more than a few hundred metres wide. The lagoon covers around 135 square kilometres and is the largest of its kind in Europe. The water is warmer, saltier, and shallower than the Mediterranean a few metres away. Five small volcanic islands rise out of it. The Murcia regional government granted the lagoon legal personhood in 2022. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Mar Menor sits on the south-east coast of Spain in the Region of Murcia, separated from the Mediterranean by La Manga del Mar Menor, a narrow sand spit about twenty-two kilometres long. The lagoon covers approximately 135 square kilometres, making it the largest saltwater lagoon in Europe by area. Its average depth is around four metres, with a maximum of about seven. Five small islands of volcanic origin sit within it, the largest of which is Isla Mayor. The lagoon is connected to the open sea through three narrow channels in the sandbar, called golas, which carry tidal exchange.
Because the lagoon is shallow and partly enclosed, the water reaches summer temperatures several degrees warmer than the open Mediterranean and is noticeably saltier, with salinity historically around 42 to 47 grams per litre. From 2016 onward, the lagoon suffered a series of eutrophication crises driven by nitrate runoff from intensive agriculture in the Campo de Cartagena, with major fish-kill events in 2019 and 2021. In September 2022, the Spanish parliament granted Mar Menor legal personhood under Law 19/2022, the first ecosystem in Europe to receive that status. Recovery is ongoing and the water clarity has improved year on year since.
The lagoon is rimmed by long, gently sloping beaches, several of them designated bathing beaches by the regional government. The towns of San Pedro del Pinatar at the north end, Los Alcázares on the western shore, and Cabo de Palos at the south below the sandbar are the usual access points. San Pedro is also home to the Salinas de San Pedro Regional Park, a protected wetland with flamingo populations through the year. La Manga itself is heavily built up along its length, a strip of resort apartments and hotels developed from the 1960s onward, with both lagoon and open-sea beaches accessible by short walks.
