Fern Canyon
— — the corridor the ferns took back.
Not only on a wall.
“A narrow slot cut by Home Creek through the bluffs above Gold Bluffs Beach. The walls climb about fifty feet, covered base to rim in five-finger and lady fern, water pulling down through the moss in small threads. The light gets in slowly, from straight overhead. Most visitors plank their way over the creek in rubber boots, and most go quiet without meaning to. The kind of place that holds its own weather.
Fern Canyon, 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.
Fern Canyon is a half-mile slot in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, on the northern California coast about fifty miles south of the Oregon border. The park is one of three California state parks jointly administered with Redwood National Park; the federal park was established in 1968 to protect the last unprotected stretches of old-growth coast redwood, and the cooperative management agreement followed in 1994. Access begins outside the village of Orick on Highway 101, then six unpaved miles of Davison Road across two shallow creek fords to the trailhead at Gold Bluffs Beach. Home Creek runs the floor of the canyon for about a half-mile before reaching the Pacific.
Home Creek does the work. The canyon was cut by tens of thousands of years of this small drainage running to the sea, scoring a slot about fifty feet deep into the marine terrace above the beach. The walls stay damp year-round. Runoff from the bluffs above keeps a slow vertical curtain of water on the rock, which is what allows the ferns to colonise from base to rim. Five fern species are usually counted on the walls: five-finger, lady, deer, sword, and chain. In winter the creek runs high enough to fill the canyon floor; in summer it is typically ankle deep, ankle cold, and slow.
From mid-May through mid-September a free day-use permit is required for the drive in on Davison Road, issued in a small daily quota. The road is unpaved, has two shallow creek fords, and is closed to trailers and RVs year-round. The canyon floor itself runs about a half-mile, with seasonal plank bridges across Home Creek installed by the park service during the permit window. The longer route follows the James Irvine Trail back through old-growth redwoods toward the Prairie Creek Visitor Center, several miles inland. Footing on the canyon floor is wet, uneven, and covered in river cobbles; sturdy waterproof boots are standard kit.