Watson Lake granite dells
— — the boulders the wind kept polishing.
Not only on a wall.
“A reservoir set down inside a field of rounded granite the colour of old bread. The Dells are a Precambrian batholith weathered into stacks and curves so soft they look poured. Kayakers move between the rocks in the early hours, before the wind picks up off Glassford Hill. The water level rises and falls with the year; in spring the coves are deep, by late summer the boulders walk out farther from shore. Quiet on a weekday morning, busy by ten. from the studio
Watson Lake granite dells, 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.
Watson Lake is a 380-acre reservoir formed in 1916 when the Chino Valley Irrigation District dammed Granite Creek about four miles north of downtown Prescott. The lake sits inside the Granite Dells, a band of exposed Precambrian granite roughly 1.4 billion years old that the City of Prescott now manages as Watson Lake Park. Access is from Highway 89; the Peavine Trail, a converted Santa Fe rail grade, runs along the eastern shore and connects through to Watson Woods Riparian Preserve.
The Dells are weathered outcrops of the Dells Granite, intruded into older Yavapai schist during the Proterozoic about 1.4 billion years ago. Exfoliation along curved joint planes has rounded the boulders into stacked domes, a process geologists call spheroidal weathering. The same band of granite surfaces again south of town at the Point of Rocks and along the Peavine grade. Lichen colours the rock pale orange in patches; the boulders read warm in late light against the lake.
Watson Lake Park is open year-round, with a small day-use fee and a seasonal campground that runs roughly April through October. The boat launch handles kayaks, canoes, and small electric craft; gas motors are not allowed. The shoreline loop on the granite is unmarked scrambling rather than a graded trail, so most paddlers tie up and climb from the water. Prescott sits at about 5,400 feet, so summer mornings stay cool and winter mornings can find ice in the shaded coves.