Perth
— — the city the Indian Ocean keeps to itself.
Not only on a wall.
“Perth sits on the wide Swan River, the only major city for two thousand kilometres in any direction. The light reads white more than gold — long flat afternoons, the river going silver, the Indian Ocean a few suburbs west. Cottesloe at dusk, the quokkas of Rottnest a ferry away, Kings Park looking back over a quiet skyline. from the studio
Perth, 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.
Perth is the capital of Western Australia, set on the Swan River near where the river meets the Indian Ocean. The metropolitan area holds about 2.1 million people, making it the fourth-largest city in Australia. It was founded in 1829 as the Swan River Colony by Captain James Stirling. Geographically it is one of the most remote major cities on earth — Adelaide, the nearest Australian capital, is over two thousand kilometres east. Kings Park, four hundred hectares above the river, anchors the city centre.
Perth records more sunny days than any other Australian capital — roughly three thousand two hundred hours of sun a year. The latitude, about thirty-two degrees south, and the dry westerly air give the afternoons a high, white quality. Locals call the afternoon sea breeze the Fremantle Doctor; it usually arrives between noon and four. Photographers on Cottesloe Beach time the day to the last forty minutes, when the Indian Ocean takes the sun straight down and the limestone of the pylons goes pink.
The Swan River is brackish, tidal, and unusually wide — it broadens to over a kilometre across at Perth Water. The river was named in 1697 by the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh for the black swans no European had seen before. Beyond the river, the Indian Ocean coast runs north to Scarborough and south to Fremantle, the port that handles most of the state's trade. Rottnest Island, nineteen kilometres offshore, is best known for the small wallaby called the quokka.