Atsion Lake
— the tea-coloured water the cedars made.
Not only on a wall.
Atsion Lake, 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 shallow lake in the heart of South Jersey's Pinelands, dammed where the Mullica River runs past the old bog-iron village of Atsion. The water carries the tannin of Atlantic white cedar — clear, but the colour of weak tea over a sandy bottom. Families come for the swimming beach off Route 206. The Atsion Mansion still stands above the shore, white against the pines. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Atsion Lake sits within Wharton State Forest, the largest tract in New Jersey's state park system at roughly 122,800 acres, in the Pinelands National Reserve of South Jersey. The lake was created by damming the Mullica River at the village of Atsion, a former bog-iron and glassworks settlement on what is now U.S. Route 206. A sandy swimming beach, picnic grounds, and cabins line the western shore, about thirty miles southeast of Philadelphia and forty-five miles south of Trenton.
The colour comes from the cedars. Atlantic white cedar swamps drain into the Mullica, and the tannins they release stain the water the brown of strong tea held to a window. Pinelands water is famously soft and acidic, with a pH that often runs below 5. Against a bottom of pale Cohansey sand, the effect reads as amber over gold rather than dark. Swimmers wade out and watch their own shadow ride along under them. The lake is shallow enough that the colour stays warm well into September.
The swimming beach is open daily from Memorial Day through Labor Day, with lifeguards on duty and a per-vehicle entrance fee charged on weekends and holidays. The Atsion Recreation Area off Route 206 holds the bathhouse, picnic tables, and a small boat launch for canoes and kayaks; gas motors are not allowed on the lake. Across the highway, the 1826 Atsion Mansion, built for ironmaster Samuel Richards, is open for tours on selected summer Sundays through the Batsto Citizens Committee.
