Luzon
— — a volcano on one horizon, rice on the other.
Not only on a wall.
“Luzon is the country's north. Manila and the bay on the west, the Cordillera spine running up the middle, the long Pacific coast on the east, and Mayon volcano standing on the southern Bicol peninsula. Rice terraces in Ifugao, surf in La Union, churches that have stood through every typhoon and most of the earthquakes. The island that holds the capital and the highlands at once. from the studio
Luzon, 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.
Luzon is the largest island in the Philippines, covering roughly 109,965 square kilometres and home to more than 60 million people, the majority of the country's population. It anchors the northern third of the archipelago. The Cordillera Central runs the island's spine, peaking at Mount Pulag at 2,922 metres. The southern peninsula carries the Bicol volcanic chain, including Mayon's near-perfect cone above Legazpi. The Sierra Madre seals the east coast against the Pacific. Manila Bay opens the west, holding the national capital and the country's deepest history of trade.
The Ifugao rice terraces above Banaue have been carved into the Cordillera slopes for roughly 2,000 years, watered by mountain streams and maintained generation to generation. Five terrace clusters were inscribed by UNESCO in 1995 as a living cultural landscape. South of the capital, the colonial churches of Vigan, Paoay, Miagao, and Santa Maria carry their own UNESCO listing — Baroque churches built in the 17th and 18th centuries, designed low and thick to survive the seismic field they sit on. The island is built from what survives weather.
Luzon's weather runs in two halves. The dry months, roughly December through May, bring cool mornings to the highlands and clear light along the coasts. The wet season from June through November carries the typhoons that cross the Pacific and make landfall on the eastern Sierra Madre. The island averages about 20 tropical cyclones a year in its area of responsibility, with several making direct landfall. The rains green the terraces and refill the rivers; the dry season lifts the haze and shows Mayon clean against the sky.