York River State Park bluffs
— Miocene shell beds under a roof of loblolly pine.
Not only on a wall.
York River State Park bluffs, 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.
“The bluffs rise above the York River where Taskinas Creek slips out through the marsh. The cliffs hold Miocene marine fossils — shells and shark teeth fifteen million years old — eroding into the tideline a few inches each year. The park covers about 2,500 acres of pine and oak, with thirty miles of trails. A kayaker pulling out near low tide will find teeth on the sand.
The place, in three passes.
York River State Park occupies the south shore of the York River in James City County, Virginia, about nine miles east of Williamsburg off Interstate 64. The park covers roughly 2,500 acres of upland pine-oak forest, freshwater wetlands, and tidal marsh, with frontage along Taskinas Creek and the York River estuary. The York is a brackish tidal river formed at West Point by the confluence of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey. The bluffs along the riverfront expose Calvert Formation marine sediments. Operated by Virginia State Parks since 1980, with a visitor center, boat ramp, and multi-use trail system.
The cliff faces along the York preserve fossil beds from the Calvert Formation, roughly fifteen to twenty million years old. The exposure yields shark teeth, ray plates, scallop shells, and the occasional whale vertebra, all weathering out as the tideline cuts back the bluff. The shells are largely Chesapecten jeffersonius, Virginia's state fossil since 1993. Collecting loose material from the beach is permitted within the park; digging into the bluff face is not. Best access is at low tide from the Riverside Trail or by kayak from the boat ramp on Taskinas Creek.
The York River at Taskinas Creek is brackish and tidal, rising and falling about two and a half feet on each cycle. Salinity runs lower than the river's mouth at Yorktown, which makes this stretch a nursery for blue crab and striped bass. The park's boat ramp launches kayaks and small craft into the creek; the river itself widens to nearly two miles across at this reach, with Gloucester County visible on the far shore. Bald eagles nest in the river pines and work the shallows at low tide.
