Lake Misurina Winter
— — the mirror the cold lays flat.
Not only on a wall.
“The largest natural lake in the Cadore, held above Auronzo at 1,754 metres. In winter the surface freezes hard enough to walk on, and the spruce line draws a black border around the white. In February of 1956 the speed-skating events of the Cortina Olympics were held here, the last time the discipline was raced on outdoor natural ice. On a still January morning the only sound is the wind off the Sorapis group, and the soft crack of a lake settling under its own weight.
Lake Misurina Winter, 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 place, in three passes.
Lake Misurina sits at 1,754 metres in the Cadore region of the Veneto Dolomites, the largest natural lake in the region and the centerpiece of the comune of Auronzo di Cadore. The Sorapis group rises directly above the south shore; the Cadini di Misurina close the western side with their limestone spires. The lake is reached by road from Cortina d'Ampezzo, fourteen kilometres to the south-west, or from Auronzo di Cadore, sixteen kilometres to the south-east. The hairpins from the lake up to Rifugio Auronzo open one of the most-walked paths in the Dolomites, the Tre Cime di Lavaredo loop, which is why a Misurina morning in summer is rarely quiet, and a Misurina morning in February nearly always is.
In winter the lake freezes from the shoreline inward, and most years bears foot traffic by early January. In February 1956 the surface carried the speed-skating events of the Cortina d'Ampezzo Olympics, the last time the discipline was contested on outdoor natural ice. The races drew international crowds to a venue that today, in the same month, holds only the wind. The road from Misurina up to Rifugio Auronzo, the trailhead for the Tre Cime di Lavaredo loop, is closed by snow from November to late May; visitors stop at the lake itself, walk the perimeter, and listen for the booming sound the ice makes as it settles in the cold.
On a still day in February the loudest sound at Misurina is the wind crossing the Cadini ridgeline above the west shore, and below it the ice itself, which booms and clicks as the lake settles under temperature change. Istituto Pio XII, the institute on the south shore, has treated children with chronic asthma since the mid-twentieth century, drawn by the lake's unusually clean alpine air, sheltered from strong winds by the surrounding peaks. The same shelter that calms the air in summer holds the cold in winter, when the lake freezes deeply enough to bear weight by the start of January. The 2.6-kilometre perimeter walk from November through March is among the quietest in the Veneto Dolomites.