Saguaro National Park
— — a forest that grows one arm at a time.
Not only on a wall.
“Two districts of Sonoran desert, one east and one west of Tucson, that hold the densest stands of saguaro cactus in the United States. The plants grow slowly: an inch a year for the first decade, a first arm somewhere around seventy-five. The park was raised from national monument to national park in 1994. Late afternoon is when the light gets long across the ridges. — from the studio
Saguaro National Park, 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.
Saguaro National Park protects roughly 92,000 acres of Sonoran Desert in two non-contiguous districts on either side of Tucson, in Pima County, Arizona. The Rincon Mountain District lies east of the city against the Rincon range; the Tucson Mountain District lies west, against the Tucson Mountains and the Saguaro West Visitor Center. The site was first set aside as Saguaro National Monument by President Herbert Hoover in 1933 and elevated to national park status by an act of Congress in 1994.
The Sonoran is the wettest of the four North American deserts, with two distinct rainy seasons: gentle winter rains from December through March, and the convective monsoon storms that arrive from the Gulf of California in July and August. Daytime highs in the lower districts climb above forty degrees Celsius in June; winter overnight lows in the higher Rincons can fall below freezing. The bi-modal rainfall pattern is what allows the saguaro itself to thrive where most cacti will not.
The saguaro cactus, Carnegiea gigantea, grows about an inch a year through its first decade, reaches reproductive maturity around thirty-five years, and typically produces its first arm between sixty and seventy-five years of age. Mature individuals can live two hundred years and exceed twelve metres in height. Late-afternoon and early-morning light raking across the ridges is when the columnar forms throw the longest shadows, and is when most photographers in the park's two scenic loop drives stop their cars.