Hormuz Island
— an island the colours of a mineral cabinet.
Not only on a wall.
“A small volcanic island in the Strait of Hormuz, off the southern Iranian coast near Bandar Abbas. The shore reads in stripes — red ochre, ultramarine, salt-white, iron-black — from the mineral layers that surface across forty-two square kilometres of dry hill. A Portuguese fort from the early sixteenth century still stands above the harbour.
Hormuz 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.
Hormuz Island sits roughly eight kilometres off the Iranian coast at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, in Hormozgan Province. The island covers about forty-two square kilometres and rises in salt-domed hills to roughly 186 metres. It controls the western approach to the Strait of Hormuz, through which about twenty percent of global oil shipments pass. The 1507 Portuguese fortress built by Afonso de Albuquerque still stands above the small town on the north coast, its walls cut from the island's own red stone.
The island's surface is unusually rich in iron oxide, silica, and salt, producing red, yellow, white, and black mineral beds visible at the shore. Local people have long harvested gelack, a red ochre clay used as pigment and, traditionally, as a culinary ingredient in a sauce called souragh. The Rainbow Valley and the Red Beach concentrate the most photographed colour bands. The hues shift sharply with the time of day and the angle of sun, deepest in the hour before sunset.
Ferries run from Bandar Abbas to the island in about forty-five minutes; the crossing operates throughout the year and is inexpensive. October through April carries the workable weather; summer temperatures regularly exceed forty degrees Celsius. Most visitors take a half-day circuit by minibus or motorcycle taxi to the Rainbow Valley, the Statues Valley, and the salt caves on the south coast. The Portuguese fort sits within walking distance of the ferry landing on the north shore.