Passo Sella in Winter
— — the rose the rocks keep, then the blue.
Not only on a wall.
“A pass at 2,244 metres in the Dolomites, between the Sella massif and the towers of the Sassolungo. In winter the road closes and the cars go away. What's left is the long quiet between two ranges: the chairlift creak, the soft hiss of ski edges, the cold that turns the rock violet at last light. Selva di Val Gardena to the north, Canazei to the south. The Sellaronda passes through here, twenty-six kilometres of skiing around the massif. Most people are moving. The pass itself just sits.
Passo Sella in 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.
Passo Sella is a high alpine pass at 2,244 metres (7,362 feet) in the central Dolomites of northern Italy, on the boundary between the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano. The saddle lies between the Sella massif to the east and the Sassolungo (Langkofel) group to the west, connecting Val di Fassa to the south with Val Gardena to the north. The SS242 state road climbs to the pass from Canazei and from Selva di Val Gardena. The Dolomites were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2009 for their geological and aesthetic significance.
The Dolomites are known for enrosadira, the rose-pink glow that washes the limestone walls at sunrise and sunset. The mineral composition of dolomite rock, calcium-magnesium carbonate with traces of iron, reflects the warm wavelengths of low-angle sun at the edges of the day. From the pass, the effect lands on the south face of the Sassolungo and on the west wall of the Sella; the towers hold the colour for ten to twenty minutes, then cool to slate-blue as the alpine night moves in. In winter, snow at the foot of the cliffs returns warm light back onto the rock and lengthens the burn.
The SS242 over Passo Sella is typically closed by snow from late autumn until late spring, when conditions make the upper hairpins impassable to private vehicles. The Sellaronda ski circuit runs through here, a single-day lift-served loop of roughly 26 kilometres of pistes around the Sella massif, marked in orange clockwise and green counter-clockwise. The Forcella Sassolungo cable car carries skiers and walkers up the western flank. Canazei and Selva di Val Gardena are the staging towns; both sit below 1,600 metres and remain accessible by car all year.