Grand Marais harbor
— the small bay the lake keeps for itself.
Not only on a wall.
Grand Marais harbor, 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.
“A small natural harbor cupped between two rocky points on the Lake Superior shore in Cook County, about 110 miles up Highway 61 from Duluth. The east breakwater carries a steel-tower lighthouse out toward Artist's Point, the bedrock peninsula that gives the bay its quiet side. Working fishing boats share the water with kayaks; the town behind the harbor — galleries, a co-op, the North House Folk School — is the reason most people come, but the harbor is why the town is here. — from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Grand Marais sits about 110 miles northeast of Duluth along Highway 61, in Cook County, with a population near 1,300. The harbor is a small natural bay sheltered by Artist's Point on the east and a curved shoreline on the west. The name is French for 'great marsh,' from early voyageur travelers, though the bay itself is open water. The town is the county seat and the last sizable stop before the Gunflint Trail turns inland and Highway 61 climbs to the Canadian border.
The harbor opens to Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes by surface area at about 31,700 square miles. Surface water stays cold through summer; air temperatures along the shore can run 10 to 15 degrees cooler than inland on a July afternoon. The east breakwater walks out to Artist's Point, a low ridge of ancient billion-year-old basalt and rhyolite scrubbed clean by waves. Fall storms close the bay to small boats; ice rims it through winter.
The harbor edge is walkable year round. The east breakwater leads to Artist's Point and the active light; the west side carries the town's marina and the North House Folk School, which teaches northern crafts from boatbuilding to wool work in waterfront buildings. The Angry Trout Cafe, the Dockside Fish Market, and the Java Moose anchor a short walk's worth of food and coffee. Parking is free along the harbor; the busiest weekends are mid-July through late September.
