Fort Pierre National Grassland
— a sky that does most of the work.
Not only on a wall.
Fort Pierre National Grassland, 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.
“About 116,000 acres of mixed-grass prairie south of Pierre, South Dakota, held by the US Forest Service since the 1960s. The land rolls in long shallow draws, with bluestem, grama, and western wheatgrass running to the horizon. In April and May, greater prairie-chickens use the same low knolls they have used for generations as booming grounds, the males stamping at sunrise. Pronghorn drift in small bands. There are few trees and almost no built lines on the skyline, so the weather reads first and the land reads second. It is a place that asks you to wait. — from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Fort Pierre National Grassland covers about 116,000 acres of mixed-grass prairie south of Pierre, South Dakota, in Stanley, Lyman, and Jones counties. It is managed by the US Forest Service as part of the Nebraska National Forest and Grasslands unit. The terrain rolls in long shallow draws between about 1,800 and 2,200 feet of elevation, dominated by little bluestem, western wheatgrass, blue grama, and big bluestem. The grassland sits on lands recovered under the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of the 1930s and grazed under cooperative permit today.
There are almost no trees, no fences on the skyline, and only a handful of gravel section roads cutting the grassland. Distant traffic on US Highway 83 is the loudest regular sound, and a half-mile in from the road the wind usually wins. Cell coverage is partial. The Forest Service keeps a viewing blind at one of the larger leks for the spring courtship, and quiet is part of the protocol — visitors are asked to be inside the blind before first light and to stay until the birds have left.
The defining season is April into early May, when greater prairie-chicken and sharp-tailed grouse use traditional booming grounds at dawn. Male prairie-chickens inflate orange neck sacs and stamp on the bare patches of earth they have used for generations. By June the grass is up and the birds disperse. Summer brings pronghorn fawns and storm cells visible from forty miles. Hunting seasons run from September through January for pheasant, sharp-tailed grouse, and deer; winter often locks the section roads under drifted snow.
