Patmos
— — the island that listened, and remembered.
Not only on a wall.
“A small dry island in the Dodecanese, the kind the wind crosses without slowing. White houses climb the hill of Chora to the dark walls of the Monastery of Saint John; below them, the cave where the Book of Revelation was set down by hand. The harbour at Skala is half a mile away. Nothing on Patmos is far from anything else, and nothing seems to have been added since it was needed. — from the studio
Patmos, 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.
Patmos is a small island in the northern Dodecanese, in the South Aegean region of Greece, covering about 34 square kilometres with a permanent population of roughly 3,000. The main port, Skala, sits on the central isthmus; the historic capital, Chora, climbs the hill above it to the walls of the Monastery of Saint John. The island was given by the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos to the monk Christodoulos in 1088, and the monastery he founded that year still anchors the island.
The Monastery of Saint John, raised on the highest point of Chora, has the silhouette of a small fortress: dark stone walls, square towers, and a single low gate. It holds one of the oldest continuously operating monastic libraries in Christendom, with manuscripts dating to the sixth century. Half a kilometre down the hill, the Cave of the Apocalypse is built into a hollow in the rock; tradition holds that the apostle John received the visions of the Book of Revelation here at the end of the first century.
Patmos has no airport. The Blue Star and Dodekanisos ferries reach Skala from Piraeus in eight to nine hours by overnight boat, or from Kos and Samos in two to three hours. The Monastery of Saint John and the Cave of the Apocalypse are open mornings most days and afternoons on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday; modest dress is required and a small admission supports the monastic community. The high pilgrimage week is Easter, and the island is quietest in October.