City of Rocks State Park
— a town of stone that has been standing there alone.
Not only on a wall.
City of Rocks State Park, 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 single acre of tall volcanic rocks rising out of flat desert in southwestern New Mexico, with campsites tucked between the boulders like small rooms off a street. The rocks are welded tuff from a single ancient eruption, weathered for nearly thirty-five million years into the shapes you walk through now. The sky is the other thing. The park is far enough from Silver City and Deming that the Milky Way reads clearly from the small observatory most clear nights. — from the studio
The place, in three passes.
City of Rocks State Park sits in Grant County, New Mexico, about midway between Silver City and Deming, off NM-61 in the Chihuahuan Desert. The park covers roughly 1,200 acres at an elevation of around 5,300 feet, and the rock formation itself occupies only a single acre of that — a tight cluster of monoliths rising up to forty feet above the desert floor. The park is administered by New Mexico State Parks and includes a campground, day-use area, visitor center, and a small public observatory.
The rocks are Kneeling Nun Tuff — a welded ash-flow deposit laid down about 34.9 million years ago by a single enormous eruption of the Emory Caldera, some twenty miles to the north. Over the following millions of years the tuff was joint-fractured and weathered along the joints, leaving the standing pillars that now define the park. Most are 20 to 40 feet tall. The pattern of streets and pillars is natural, but reads from the air as if a small town had been laid out and left.
The park is open year-round and is one of New Mexico's recognised dark-sky destinations — the Orion Group observatory inside the park offers public viewing on most clear weekends. There are around 50 developed campsites, many tucked directly between the rock formations, plus a small visitor center with exhibits on the Emory Caldera eruption. Day use is roughly $5 per vehicle; camping is extra. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons. Summer afternoons run into the mid-90s Fahrenheit; winter nights regularly drop below freezing.
