Lake Sumner State Park
— a slow blue spread across the eastern plains.
Not only on a wall.
Lake Sumner 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 on the Pecos River north of Fort Sumner, held back by a 1937 Bureau of Reclamation dam. The water spreads wide and quiet across the eastern New Mexico plains; pelicans work the surface in summer and the campground sits low above the bank. The Bosque Redondo memorial and the old Fort Sumner site are a short drive south, marking the harder chapter of the river's history.
The place, in three passes.
Lake Sumner State Park surrounds Sumner Lake on the Pecos River in De Baca County, eastern New Mexico, about 16 miles northwest of the town of Fort Sumner. The reservoir was formed by Sumner Dam, completed in 1937 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as part of the Carlsbad Project that stores Pecos water for irrigation downstream. The park sits at roughly 4,200 feet elevation in the eastern plains and offers camping, fishing, boating, and bird-watching. White pelicans, herons, and bald eagles use the lake at different seasons.
The Pecos River runs south out of the southern Rockies and across the eastern plains of New Mexico; Sumner Dam is one of several impoundments that store its flow for irrigation downstream. The lake is known among anglers for walleye and white bass, and for the long-shore wind that comes off the plains in the afternoon. Water level varies with the season and the irrigation calendar; spring and early summer are the steady high-water months, and late summer can draw the shoreline back.
The park is open all year with a small day-use and camping fee paid at the entrance station. The main campground sits above the eastern shore; boat ramps reach the lake from two access points. The nearby town of Fort Sumner holds the Bosque Redondo Memorial at the historic Fort Sumner site, marking the forced internment of Navajo and Mescalero Apache people from 1864 to 1868. Billy the Kid's grave is in the old military cemetery a short drive south of the lake.
