Khost
— — pine smoke at the foot of the Spīn Ghar.
Not only on a wall.
“A bowl of pine and walnut between two ranges of mountains on Afghanistan's eastern border. The Khost-Gardez Pass climbs north toward Kabul; south, the road runs to the crossing at Ghulam Khan. Markets in the provincial capital sell pine nuts and walnuts through autumn. The province is home to the Mangal, Tani, and other Pashtun tribes. Winters are cold, and the snow holds on the high slopes.
Khost, 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.
Khost is a province in eastern Afghanistan, sharing its eastern border with Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area. The provincial capital of the same name, sometimes called Matun, sits in a bowl-shaped lowland at about 1,150 metres elevation, rimmed by mountains, with the Spīn Ghar range to the north-east. The province covers roughly 4,150 square kilometres and held an estimated population near 600,000. The Khost-Gardez Pass, a single-lane mountain road, links the bowl to Gardez in Paktia and onward to Kabul.
The Khost bowl is one of the more forested places in Afghanistan. Stands of chir pine, walnut, and oak climb the slopes above the town, and the autumn pine-nut harvest is a meaningful local trade exported west toward Kabul and east into Pakistan. Air sits in the bowl in winter; smoke from cook fires and pine wood gathers above the rooftops in the cold months. The province has long held the Mangal, Tani, Sabari, and other Pashtun tribes as its main populations.
Khost has four distinct seasons. Summers are warm in the bowl, with daytime highs near 35°C in July, while the surrounding mountains stay cooler. Autumn brings the pine-nut harvest in October and November and the walnut crop alongside it; the markets in the provincial capital fill with both. Winters are cold and the higher slopes hold snow into March. Spring runs the apricot and almond bloom through the orchards of the lower valleys, brief but pronounced before the heat returns.