Tioman Island
— — twin granite teeth above a reef the colour of bottle glass.
Not only on a wall.
“A volcanic island thirty-two kilometres off the Pahang coast, ringed by coral and dense rainforest. Two granite peaks, Nenek Semukut, lean against the sky on the south end and give the island its profile. The water inside the marine park reads jade in the morning and turns to bottle glass by late afternoon, when the long-tail boats come back to Tekek and Salang. — from the studio
Tioman 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.
Pulau Tioman lies about thirty-two kilometres off the east coast of peninsular Malaysia in the South China Sea, administered as part of Pahang state. The island runs roughly twenty kilometres north to south and twelve across, covering about 134 square kilometres of granite ridges and rainforest. Its highest point, Gunung Kajang, reaches 1,038 metres. The waters within two nautical miles of the shoreline form the Pulau Tioman Marine Park, gazetted in 1994 and managed by the federal Department of Fisheries.
The reef system around Tioman supports more than 180 species of hard and soft coral and several hundred reef-fish species, with visibility commonly twenty metres or more from March through October. Tiger Reef, Chebeh, and Soyak are the named dive sites the boats run from Salang and Air Batang. Green and hawksbill turtles nest on the quieter eastern beaches; volunteers at Juara Turtle Project have monitored nests on Juara since 2007, releasing tens of thousands of hatchlings.
Tioman runs on the monsoon. The dry season, roughly March through October, is when the ferries from Mersing and Tanjung Gemok operate, the dive shops fill, and the reef holds its clearest water. From early November to late February the northeast monsoon shuts most resorts and ferry services; many island businesses close entirely. Plan an east-coast visit before mid-October and check the operator schedules at Mersing jetty close to your travel date.