Negev
— — the desert that holds its breath at dusk.
Not only on a wall.
“The Negev fills more than half of Israel and almost none of its noise. The road south from Beersheba thins out, the acacias get smaller, and by the time the limestone walls of Makhtesh Ramon open up under the car there is nothing else for a long way. The light is the thing. Pale at noon, ochre by four, and for a few minutes after sunset the cliffs turn the colour of a banked fire. Bedouin tea is still the right thing to drink. — from the studio
Negev, 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.
The place, in three passes.
The Negev is the desert region that covers roughly 13,000 square kilometres of southern Israel — more than half the country's land area, with a fraction of its population. It runs from the semi-arid hills around Beersheba south to the Gulf of Aqaba at Eilat, a span of about 280 kilometres. Its geological signature is the makhtesh, a steep-walled erosion crater unique to this region of the Levant. Makhtesh Ramon, the largest, is 40 kilometres long. The Negev Highlands also hold Nabataean caravan towns along the ancient Incense Route, four of which are inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Desert light here works in slow bands. Mid-morning is flat and white against the limestone; by late afternoon the cliffs of Makhtesh Ramon shift through ochre and rose, and the eight minutes after the sun drops below the western rim hold a deep burnt-orange that photographers in Mitzpe Ramon plan their week around. The air is dry enough that stars appear unusually early — the Ramon Crater region was designated an International Dark Sky Park in 2017, the first in the Middle East, and the Israel Astronomical Society runs night programs from the visitors' centre on the crater's northern edge.
Outside the towns the Negev is quiet in a way that surprises people who arrive expecting wind. The Highlands sit above 800 metres and the air thins; sound carries differently. A Bedouin shepherd's bell on the next hillside reads as nearby. Settlements are sparse — Mitzpe Ramon has about 5,000 residents, Sde Boker fewer — and the long stretches of Highway 40 between them pass through nothing but desert pavement and the occasional ibex. David Ben-Gurion chose Sde Boker for his retirement in 1953 partly for this silence, and is buried there overlooking the Zin Valley.