Monument Valley Mittens
— — two hands the valley left out to dry.
Not only on a wall.
“The two buttes that hold the Monument Valley overlook. East Mitten and West Mitten, each with a thumb of sandstone standing off the main mass. The view from the tribal park visitor center faces them directly across the wash. They light at sunrise, hold the eye through the morning, and at the end of the day cast a long shadow that reaches Merrick Butte. The valley belongs to the Navajo Nation.
Monument Valley Mittens, 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 Mitten Buttes are the two most photographed formations in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, in the Oljato-Monument Valley chapter of the Navajo Nation on the Arizona-Utah border. Each butte rises roughly 1,000 feet above the valley floor, with a separate thumb of sandstone that gives the formation its name. The visitor center and View Hotel, completed in 2008, face them directly. Park access is from U.S. Highway 163, and the 17-mile loop road passes the West Mitten on its first descent from the rim. The Wildcat Trail circles West Mitten in three miles.
Each Mitten is De Chelly Sandstone capping Organ Rock Shale, a sequence laid down around 270 million years ago in a Permian desert. The thumb shapes are remnants of erosion working faster on the softer rock around them, leaving the harder caprock standing alone. Iron oxide tints the sandstone red. The valley sits on the Colorado Plateau at roughly 5,200 feet, and the buttes belong to the same lineage as Merrick Butte and Mitchell Butte across the valley floor.
The overlook faces east, which puts sunrise directly on the front face of both Mittens. From about twenty minutes before first light through the half-hour after, the buttes go from grey to bronze to a saturated red, then settle. Photographers stand at the View Hotel terrace or the first overlook on the loop road. Sunset works in reverse, lighting the western edges and stretching the shadows east toward Merrick. The valley closes to visitors at sunset, so the long shadow is the last thing the day shows.