The Stories Behind the Names: How Travel and Stone Inspire Our Collection

There is a particular kind of quiet I feel when I stand in front of old stone, the sort of wall that has weathered so many seasons that its surface has become a record of rain and sun and the hands that passed it, and I think that quiet is where every name in our collection begins. When I finish a colorway, I want its name to carry some of that feeling into your studio before you have even unrolled the canvas, so that the word on the tube tells you something true about where the surface came from in spirit. Over the years, those names have settled into a gentle order of their own: our backdrops are named for stones and minerals, our hand painted flat lays for places in near and faraway pockets of the world, and our fabric flat lays for plants and trees. This is a reflection on why I name things the way I do, and on the real stones, places and living things those names belong to.

Quick Answer

Chasing Stone names follow three families. Our hand painted backdrops are named for stones and minerals, such as Celestite, Hematite, Serpentine and Travertine, because their story is old world stone and plaster that can travel to any shoot. Our hand painted flat lays are named for places, such as Matera, Chefchaouen, Haleakala and Vik, because each carries a firsthand experience of somewhere in the world onto canvas. Our stain resistant fabric flat lays are named for plants and trees, such as Manzanita and Sequoia. Each name is meant to carry a small story about texture, nature and light along with the colorway itself.

Why We Name Colorways Instead of Numbering Them

A number can tell you where a surface sits in a catalog, while a name can tell you something of how it might feel to stand in front of it, and when I was choosing how to name the colorways I paint, I wanted every surface to arrive with a little piece of the natural world attached, because so much of what I try to do at the easel is translate nature onto canvas, and it felt right that the words should come from the same place the textures do.

Every name in our collection carries a connection to, and a deep appreciation for, the natural world, whether it belongs to a stone, a place or a living plant. I am always inspired by the places we have been and the stories we hold in our hearts, and I hope that when a photographer reads a name on the tube, it offers a small window into that same appreciation before the canvas is ever unrolled.

Names also do practical, generous work for the people who use our surfaces. A photographer can tell a client that a session will be photographed on Bentonite or Celestite, and that single word sets a mood far better than a description of warm grey or pale blue ever could. A stylist can build a mood board around a place name and invite a client into an atmosphere before anyone opens a camera bag. And over time, the names become a shared language between us and the community of artists who create with our surfaces, a vocabulary that is easier to remember and far lovelier to say aloud than a string of numbers.

Because every backdrop and every hand painted flat lay is painted by hand, each piece is unique and may vary slightly from photographs. The name gathers a family of canvases together around a shared feeling, while each individual canvas keeps its own small variations in brushwork and tone. In that sense a name speaks to character more than to an exact recipe, which suits handmade work beautifully, and I have written more about that beauty of variation in the art of imperfection in hand painted texture.

Backdrops Named for Stones and Minerals

Our backdrops are the large surfaces, in 5x8, 8x10 and 8x14, that hang behind a portrait or a styled scene, and every one of the twenty four colorways is named for a stone, a mineral or another material of the earth: Sandstone, Clay, Umber, Mica, Bronzite, Travertine, Rose Quartz, Rhodonite, Hematite, Celestite, Lapis, Azurite, Limestone, Bentonite, Silt, Slate, Graphite, Carbon, Lavender Quartz, Ametrine, Purpurite, Celadonite, Olivine and Serpentine.

The story behind this family is old world texture made portable. Crumbling stone, weathered plaster and walls that hold centuries of light are among the most beautiful surfaces on earth to photograph against, and they are also immovable. A backdrop painted to carry that same depth can be rolled onto its core, slipped into its tube and carried to a wedding venue, a hotel suite or a studio on the other side of the country. Naming those canvases for the materials of the earth honors the idea that they are, in spirit, pieces of stone that learned how to travel.

What follows is a closer look at some of the minerals and stones behind those names. I have kept to what the references say, drawing on Wikipedia's mineral entries, the Gemological Institute of America, the WebExhibits pigment reference, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Engineering Rome project, because the real stories of these materials are more beautiful than anything I could invent.

Celestite, Lapis and the Blues of Sky and Stone

Celestite carries one of the loveliest names in the mineral world. The mineral, also known as celestine, is strontium sulfate, and its name derives from the Latin caelestis, meaning celestial, which in turn comes from caelum, the sky or heavens. Geologists trace the name to the mineral's occasional delicate blue color. There is something tender in the thought that a stone was named simply because it looked like the sky, and it is a name I love to see written on a backdrop.

Lapis comes from lapis lazuli, one of the oldest treasured stones in human history. According to the Gemological Institute of America, lapis lazuli is a metamorphic rock whose principal historical source lies in the remote Sar-e-Sang district of Badakhshan province in Afghanistan, and it was traded over long distances as a luxury from Central Asia to China, the Middle East and Europe. When the blue mineral lazurite is separated and purified, the powder becomes ultramarine, which the GIA describes as an intense and highly valued pigment, the most prized blue in medieval Europe, where it was used for high value books and paintings. A synthetic ultramarine was first made in the 1820s. As a painter, I find it deeply moving that one of my colorways shares its name with a stone that artists once ground by hand into their most precious color.

Azurite, our dark marine blue, completes this family of blues. Its name, as the WebExhibits pigment reference explains, comes through Latin from a Persian word for blue, lazhward, which later became our word azure. Azurite is a copper carbonate mineral, and the same reference describes it as the most important blue pigment in European painting throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, so for centuries painters ground this very stone by hand into the blues of their paintings.

Hematite and Rhodonite: Iron, Manganese and Rose

Hematite is our berry pink backdrop, and its namesake is one of the most important minerals in the history of painting. Hematite is a common iron oxide, and its name comes from the Greek word for blood. Every specimen, whatever its outward look, leaves a rust red streak when drawn across unglazed porcelain, and hematite forms the basis of red, purple and brown iron oxide pigments, including red ochre. I love that a stone named for blood and used as pigment now lends its name to a canvas made of pigment.

Rhodonite, our bold carnation pink, takes its name from the Ancient Greek rhodon, meaning rose, for its pinkish red color. It is a manganese silicate, and its rose red hue comes from manganese within the crystal. Alongside Rose Quartz, these names gather a small family drawn from rose and iron.

Bentonite, Travertine and the Stones of Earth and Building

Bentonite is our mid taupe, and its namesake is a clay with a volcanic past. Bentonite usually forms from the weathering of volcanic ash, most often in seawater, as the glassy ash slowly alters into clay minerals. One of its first recorded findings was in the Cretaceous Benton Shale near Rock River, Wyoming, and that shale takes its name from Fort Benton, Montana. I find it quietly wonderful that a soft earthen color carries within its name the memory of ash, sea and the American West.

Travertine is a stone of springs and cities. It is a sedimentary rock that forms near mineral springs, where calcium carbonate builds up in layers. As the Engineering Rome project describes, the Romans quarried it at Tivoli, then called Tibur, about thirty kilometers from the center of Rome, and called it lapis Tiburtinus after the town. The Colosseum, begun under Vespasian in 72 CE and completed under Titus in 80 CE, was built largely of travertine and Roman concrete. Few names in our collection speak so directly to the old world stone that inspires the whole family.

Limestone, Sandstone, Silt, Slate and Clay belong to this same grounded family of earthen names. Silt is our dark taupe, Slate our light grey, and Limestone our light tan, and together they form a quiet range of neutrals for portraits.

Serpentine and Olivine: The Greens of Deep Stone

Serpentine has one of the most evocative histories of any name in our collection. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica explains that the name is generally thought to come from the fancied resemblance of the dark mottled green stone to the skin of a serpent, though it may instead refer to an old reputed use of the stone as a remedy for snakebite. Either way, it is a name that carries centuries of human imagination.

Olivine is named for its typical olive green color. It is a magnesium iron silicate, and its translucent form is the gemstone peridot. It is also one of the most abundant minerals beneath our feet: olivine and its high pressure relatives make up more than half of Earth's upper mantle. There is a lovely humility in naming a canvas for a mineral that is, in a sense, the hidden foundation of the ground we stand on.

Hand Painted Flat Lays Named for Places

Our hand painted flat lays are smaller surfaces, Petite at 26 by 20 inches and Standard at 35 by 28 inches, made for overhead details, invitation suites, rings, florals and still life. Their fifteen colorways are named for places: Matera, San Miguel, Guilin, Joshua Tree, Provence, Santorini, Monteverde, Haleakala, Havana, Sakura, Vik, Marrakech, Chefchaouen, Chateau and Avalon.

Where the backdrops carry stone, the flat lays carry place. Each is meant to hold a firsthand experience of some pocket of the world, carried onto canvas, and because they are rollable, they travel easily with the traveling creative from one shoot to the next. A wedding photographer might unroll Matera on a hotel desk in the morning and Avalon on a sunlit windowsill in the afternoon, and in both moments, the surface brings a small remembrance of somewhere else into the frame.

Most of the places our flat lays are named for are places we have visited ourselves, and each name carries our connection to that corner of the natural world. Provence and Marrakech are two that have especially stayed with me. Our Provence flat lay is a muted lilac with faintly golden highlights and grey undertones, and our Marrakech flat lay is a faded copper and cool mauve with faint nude highlights, and painting them is one of the ways I carry those places home with me and onto canvas.

Alongside those memories, I would love to share a little about the places themselves, drawn from the Italian Ministry of Culture's UNESCO office, Wikipedia, EBSCO Research Starters and the Iceland Highlights travel guide, because every one of them is worth knowing.

Matera

Matera is a city in the Basilicata region of southern Italy, and its ancient districts, the Sassi, are among the most remarkable human landscapes anywhere. According to the Italian Ministry of Culture's UNESCO office, the Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches of Matera were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1993. The settlement was built into the natural caves of the Murgia, a calcareous plateau cut by ravines and fissures, and its earliest houses were simple caves enclosed by walls of excavated blocks. The site shows human occupation from the Paleolithic onward, and its two main districts are Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano. A place where people have lived within carved stone for so long feels like a natural namesake for a surface painted to hold the warmth of old walls.

Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen sits in the mountains of northwest Morocco, between Tetouan and Ouazzane. It was established in 1471 as a small fortress by Ali ibn Rashid al-Alami, and today it is known around the world for its buildings painted in shades of blue, which have earned it the names the Blue City and the Blue Pearl of Morocco. Our Chefchaouen flat lay is a bold cornflower blue with faint turquoise highlights, and a town known for buildings painted in shades of blue has a kinship with handmade surfaces that I find very dear.

Haleakala

Haleakalā is the great dormant volcano of Maui, rising to 10,023 feet above sea level, and its name means house of the sun. Our Haleakala flat lay is a bold salmon pink with yellow peach highlights, and for a surface made to be photographed, I cannot imagine a more beautiful name than one that means the house of the sun.

Vik

Vík í Mýrdal is a small village on the south coast of Iceland, and just west of it lies Reynisfjara, a beach of black sand. The sand there is basalt, lava from the Katla volcanic system beneath the Mýrdalsjökull glacier that cooled and was carried seaward by glacial floods, then tumbled by the surf into smooth dark grains. Our Vik flat lay carries charcoal black, inky tones highlighted with graphite and a heavy grit texture, and a shoreline made of polished volcanic stone feels like a fitting place for that name, a bridge between our stone named backdrops and our place named surfaces.

The other names in the collection, San Miguel, Guilin, Joshua Tree, Provence, Santorini, Monteverde, Havana, Sakura, Marrakech, Chateau and Avalon, each hold their own atmosphere, and I hope to share more about each of them, and about the places themselves, in the seasons ahead.

Fabric Flat Lays Named for Plants and Trees

Our third family is different in both material and story. The fabric flat lays, in vegan wool or textured velvet at about 34 by 25.5 inches with an organic cotton canvas backing, are not hand painted. They are stain resistant surfaces, protected with the only patented GREENGUARD Gold Certified stain proofing, which is non-toxic, free of formaldehyde, PFAS and PFOAs, and infused into each fiber, so the protection lives within the fabric itself.

Their story is protection without compromise, and their names come from plants and trees: Buckwheat, Yarrow, Pampas, Rye, Lotus, Sumac, Vetiver, Manzanita, Ceanothus, Echeveria, Thistle, Dogwood, Oak, Alder, Ironwood, Anemone, Tulsi, Sequoia and Alocasia. To me, living things feel right for surfaces whose purpose is to care for what is placed on them. You can see the whole family among our stain resistant fabric flat lays.

Manzanita is a lovely example of what these names carry. The name means little apple in Spanish, for the small apple like fruits the shrubs produce. Manzanitas are known for their reddish or orange bark, gnarled trunks and waxy leaves, and California is home to more than sixty species, growing in chaparral, coastal scrub, woodland and along coastal bluffs, according to Los Padres ForestWatch. As a California studio, it means something to me to carry the name of a plant so woven into our native landscape.

Old World Texture Made Portable: Where Travel and Nature Meet

When I think about the threads that run through all three families, the one I return to most is the idea of carrying something unmovable to wherever the artist needs it. An old stone wall, a blue painted street in the mountains of Morocco and a volcanic shoreline will always stay exactly where they are, while a photographer travels constantly, from venue to venue, city to city, sometimes country to country, and the work asks for beautiful surfaces in every one of those places.

That is why so much of how we make and ship our surfaces is shaped by travel. Every backdrop and hand painted flat lay is painted by me on premium cotton canvas here in Orange County, California, with materials sourced in the USA. I paint on cotton canvas because it has a luxurious, heavy weight feel while remaining light enough for one person to maneuver easily, and painted canvas has stood the test of time as a medium of choice for photographers' backdrops for generations. Backdrops are taped to a cardboard core and shipped in a reusable telescopic tube, and flat lays are rolled on a core with a band and ribbon in a branded tube. We ship internationally, and for every product sold, we plant one tree through One Tree Planted, a small way of giving back to the natural world that gives us every name we use.

Care is part of that portability, too. A backdrop should be stored rolled on its inner core and never creased or folded, and a hand painted flat lay should never be creased either. Roll both paint side in, so that when the piece is unrolled it rests on its durable, wipeable canvas back rather than on the painted face. If a flat lay feels stiff in cold weather, rolling it gently the opposite way helps it relax, and a small dent in a flat lay can be eased by ironing the back on low to medium heat. These are the habits that let a surface travel with you for many seasons, and our guide to cleaning and caring for hand painted canvas backdrops walks through each step. Our guide to traveling with photography backdrops covers packing, flights and storage in detail.

How to Choose a Colorway When a Name Speaks to You

Names are a lovely way into the collection, and I would encourage you to let them guide your imagination. When a name speaks to you, though, it helps to pair that feeling with a few practical questions, so the surface you choose serves your work as beautifully as its name suggests.

Begin with value, meaning how light or dark the surface is. For portraits, a light colorway such as Slate or Limestone keeps a frame airy and luminous, a mid tone such as Bentonite sits gently between the two, and a deep colorway such as Silt or Bronzite, our dark chocolate brown, brings richness and mood. Our complete color guide to every backdrop describes each colorway and the kinds of sessions it suits.

Next, think about how the colorway will sit with the subjects you photograph most often. A florist's arrangements, a bride's gown and an invitation suite each respond differently to warm and cool surfaces, and the relationships between them follow the same principles painters have used for centuries. Our guide to color theory for photographers offers a gentle grounding in harmony and contrast that makes these decisions easier.

For flat lays, consider where you will use them and how often you travel. Because they roll, they can come with you to every wedding, and a small family of place names that share a mood can carry a consistent look across a whole season of galleries. Our complete flat lay surface guide for wedding photographers explores how to build that family.

And finally, let the name do its quiet work with your clients. When you tell a couple their portraits will be made on Celestite, or that their rings will be photographed on Matera, you are offering them a small story along with a beautiful image, and that sense of intention is something people remember.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are Chasing Stone backdrops named after minerals?

Our backdrops carry the story of old world stone and plaster made portable, so it felt natural to name them for the materials of the earth. Every one of the twenty four backdrop colorways, from Celestite and Hematite to Travertine and Serpentine, is named for a stone, a mineral or another material of the earth. The names describe a feeling and a lineage, so each canvas arrives with a little of the natural world attached.

Why are the hand painted flat lays named for places?

Each hand painted flat lay is meant to carry a firsthand experience of some near or faraway pocket of the world onto canvas. Their fifteen colorways, including Matera, Chefchaouen, Haleakala, Vik and Avalon, are named for places, and because the surfaces are rollable, they travel easily with photographers and stylists, bringing a small remembrance of somewhere else into every frame.

Are the fabric flat lays hand painted too?

No. Our fabric flat lays, in vegan wool or textured velvet, are not hand painted. They are stain resistant surfaces protected with the only patented GREENGUARD Gold Certified stain proofing, non-toxic and free of formaldehyde, PFAS and PFOAs, infused into each fiber. They are named for plants and trees, such as Manzanita, Sequoia and Dogwood, and they have an organic cotton canvas backing.

Does the name tell me exactly what color a surface is?

A name describes a family and a feeling rather than an exact color. Every backdrop and hand painted flat lay is painted by hand and made to order, so each piece is unique and may vary slightly from photographs. For a sense of value and tone, our color guide describes each backdrop, and the product pages show each colorway photographed in use.

What does the name Celestite mean?

Celestite, also called celestine, is a mineral made of strontium sulfate. Its name comes from the Latin caelestis, meaning celestial, which itself comes from caelum, the sky or heavens, and it was given for the mineral's occasional delicate blue color. It is one of the loveliest names in geology, and it gives our Celestite backdrop its quiet, open feeling.

Is the Matera flat lay named for the Italian city?

Yes, Matera is a city in Basilicata, in southern Italy, known for the Sassi, ancient districts built into the natural caves of a calcareous plateau. The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches of Matera were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993. The city's long history of life within carved stone makes it a fitting name for a surface painted to hold old world warmth.

A Name to Begin Your Own Story

A name is where each surface begins, and the truest stories behind these surfaces will be the ones you create with them: the portraits made in a hotel suite on Bentonite, the bouquet photographed on Matera before a ceremony, the quiet still life on Manzanita at the end of a long day. I name each colorway with care, and then I send it out into the world hoping it will gather new meaning in your hands, so that you too can continue to create and share your art.

If you would like to wander through the names yourself, you might begin with our hand painted backdrops, or with our hand painted flat lays, where Matera carries the memory of carved stone. Which name will you carry into your next story?