Block Island Crescent Beach
— the long curve the Atlantic left for the morning.
Not only on a wall.
Block Island Crescent Beach, 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.
“Three miles of pale sand running north from Old Harbor, with the Victorian rooflines of the ferry town held just behind the dunes. The water on the protected side reads warmer than the open Atlantic, and the surf is small enough that families settle in for the day. Bicycles lean in the eelgrass at the access paths. In the late afternoon the light pulls the colour out of the sand and the shadows lengthen toward the bluffs to the south. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Crescent Beach is the long sweep of east-facing shoreline that begins at Old Harbor and runs roughly three miles north toward Clay Head. Block Island itself sits about 13 miles off the Rhode Island mainland, a glacial-moraine island of around 10 square miles in the town of New Shoreham. The beach is reached on foot from the ferry landing or by bicycle along Corn Neck Road, and the stretch closest to town is the lifeguarded Fred Benson Town Beach, with pavilion, rentals, and showers.
The east shore faces Block Island Sound rather than the full open Atlantic, so the surf at Crescent runs gentler than at Mohegan Bluffs on the southern coast. Water temperatures climb into the upper 60s Fahrenheit by mid-July and peak in August. Currents along the bar can pull, and lifeguards staff the Town Beach section in season. The sand is the pale, finely sorted quartz that the last glacier left along this part of southern New England, scoured and rebuilt by every winter storm.
The Block Island Ferry from Point Judith runs year-round and reaches Old Harbor in about an hour, landing roughly a quarter mile from the southern end of the beach. Most visitors walk or rent a bicycle for the day; the island discourages bringing a car. Fred Benson Town Beach charges seasonal parking and rents chairs, umbrellas, and boards. The quieter middle stretch toward Scotch Beach has no facilities and thins out fast on a weekday.
