Easter Island
— — the faces the island turned toward the sea.
Not only on a wall.
“A small volcanic island in the southeast Pacific, about 3,500 kilometres west of the Chilean coast and 2,000 kilometres east of the nearest inhabited neighbour. Roughly 887 stone faces, the moai, stand or lie across the slopes of Rano Raraku and the ahu platforms along the shore. The studio knows Rapa Nui by the long blue distance the island gives back to the Pacific.
Easter Island, 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.
Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is a 163-square-kilometre volcanic island in the southeast Pacific, about 3,500 kilometres west of the Chilean mainland and 2,000 kilometres east of Pitcairn, its nearest inhabited neighbour. Polynesian settlers arrived between roughly AD 1100 and 1200, most likely from the Marquesas or Mangareva. Chile annexed the island in 1888, and it is now administered as a special territory within the Valparaíso Region. UNESCO inscribed Rapa Nui National Park on the World Heritage List in 1995. The current resident population is about 7,750, concentrated in the town of Hanga Roa.
The stone is volcanic tuff, basalt, and red scoria. The 887 known moai, catalogued by the Easter Island Statue Project, were carved between roughly AD 1250 and 1500 at the quarry of Rano Raraku on the southeast slope of the island. The largest standing moai, Paro on Ahu Te Pito Kura, reached 9.8 metres tall. Ahu Tongariki, restored between 1992 and 1996 by a Chilean and Japanese team after a 1960 tsunami scattered its statues, lines fifteen moai along a 100-metre platform facing inland toward the rising sun.
The island is reached only by air, with daily LATAM flights from Santiago covering the 3,759 kilometres in about five and a half hours. The Rapa Nui National Park covers most of the island and requires a single entry pass purchased on arrival, valid for ten days. The cooler dry months from April through October are the most comfortable, with daytime highs near 22°C; the wetter summer runs from December through March with highs near 27°C and brief heavy showers. Hanga Roa is the only town and the base for most visits.