Effigy Mounds National Monument bear effigy
— a bear the size of a barn, walking slow through the oaks.
Not only on a wall.
Effigy Mounds National Monument bear effigy, 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.
“The Great Bear Mound is the largest bear effigy at Effigy Mounds, about 70 feet from nose to tail and three and a half feet high. It sits on the North Unit bluff, reached by a steady climb from the visitor center. The shape reads best in low autumn light, when the leaf litter thins and the silhouette returns to the ground. Walk past slowly. Stay on the trail. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Bear-shaped effigies are the signature feature of Effigy Mounds National Monument, on the Mississippi bluffs of northeast Iowa. Of the more than 200 mounds preserved within the 2,526-acre monument, 31 are animal effigies, with bears the most common shape. The Great Bear Mound on the North Unit is the largest, running roughly 70 feet long and about three and a half feet high. Late Woodland builders raised the effigies between roughly 750 and 1400 CE.
The bears are quiet earth, not stone, and they do not announce themselves. From a few yards off the trail an unaware visitor walks past without noticing the shape on the ground. The rangers prefer it that way. The monument is the largest preserved concentration of effigy mounds in the United States and is sacred to more than 20 affiliated tribal nations, including the Ho-Chunk, the Iowa, and the Sac and Fox. Reverence here is mostly silence.
Reaching the Great Bear Mound is a short, steep hike. From the visitor center on Iowa Highway 76, the North Unit trail climbs about 300 feet over the first half mile to the Little Bear Group, then continues along the bluff to Hanging Rock and back. The total round trip runs about four miles. The path is unpaved. Visitors must stay on the trail; the mounds themselves are federally protected and culturally sacred, and walking on them is prohibited at any hour.
