Tesero Cross-Country Meadow
— — the green the snow waits to find.
Not only on a wall.
“A wide green field on the floor of the Val di Fiemme, below the village of Tesero, with the Latemar to the west and the Lagorai ridge to the south. Through summer the field is grass and grazing, dairy cows with bells, wildflowers along the edge where the woods begin. The small lake the stadium is named for sits in the middle, fed by springs and snowmelt off the high country. Children ride bikes along the maintenance paths the groomers will follow in February. The loudspeakers and finish gantries are gone. The field is only a field.
Tesero Cross-Country Meadow, 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.
The meadow lies on the floor of the Val di Fiemme, in the autonomous province of Trento, on the broad alluvial flat between the village of Tesero and the Avisio river. The valley is bracketed by the Latemar massif rising to the west and the Lagorai ridge to the south, both inside the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage area inscribed in 2009. Elevation across the field runs around 1,000 metres. A small lake, called Lago di Tesero, sits near the centre, fed by springs and seasonal snowmelt; the cross-country stadium named for it shares the flat. The towns of Cavalese and Predazzo lie a few kilometres along the valley to either side.
From May through October the field is grazing land for the malga herds of Val di Fiemme. Brown and dun dairy cows with iron bells crop the grass through the short Alpine summer, moving across the flat under the watch of the malghesi who run the high pastures above 1,800 metres. The meadow holds wildflowers along its uncut edges: yellow arnica, blue gentian, white anemone where the woods begin. The tracks the groomers will cut in winter sit as straight lines mowed through taller grass. The lake at the centre stays cold and clear, with brown trout in the deeper end. Larches above the meadow begin to colour by late September.
The field carries a four-decade racing calendar that briefly displaces its summer life. The Centro del Fondo Lago di Tesero, built on the meadow in the 1980s, has hosted the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships three times, in 1991, 2003, and 2013, and held the cross-country events of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics in February. On the last Sunday of January every year, the 70-kilometre Marcialonga from Moena to Cavalese passes through the field, drawing around seven thousand skiers since the race began in 1971. By April the gantries come down and the cows return. From May until the first snow the field is again a field.