Conchas Lake State Park
— a long blue cut through short-grass country.
Not only on a wall.
Conchas Lake 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 reservoir in the rolling shortgrass of San Miguel County, held back by a concrete dam the Army Corps finished in 1939. Sailboats work the south arm in summer. Walleye come up to the rocks at dusk. The water reads almost navy against the buff sandstone bluffs, and the wind, when it comes, comes from the west all afternoon.
The place, in three passes.
Conchas Lake sits on the Canadian River about 30 miles northwest of Tucumcari, in the shortgrass country of San Miguel County. The dam was authorised under the Flood Control Act and completed by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1939, the first major dam on the Canadian. The reservoir runs roughly 25 miles in length when full and holds the surrounding bluffs of buff sandstone and juniper on a long, irregular shoreline. The state park has been operated by New Mexico since the 1950s.
The lake is fed by the Canadian River and the Conchas River, and the level rides on snowmelt out of the Sangre de Cristos far to the west. Walleye, white bass, and channel catfish hold along the rocky points; the state record walleye, a 16-pound fish, was taken here. Wind builds across open water through the afternoon, which is why the south arm has been a sailing lake since the 1960s.
The park has two developed areas: South Recreation Area near the dam and the marina, and North Recreation Area across the bridge. Day-use, camping, two boat ramps, and a small lodge complex sit on the south side. The park is open year-round; summer brings the heaviest use, and the high-desert winters are cold and quiet. The nearest fuel and groceries are in Conchas village, about a mile out.
