Jeju Island
— — the volcanic island where the women still dive.
Not only on a wall.
“South Korea's southernmost province and largest island, built around the shield volcano Hallasan and the dark basalt that came out of it. The haenyeo, the women free-divers of the south and east coasts, have worked the same shallows for generations and were inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Heritage list in 2016. Mandarin orange groves run from the coast up to about 400 metres. The strait carries fog in most mornings.
Jeju 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.
Jeju is a volcanic island about 85 kilometres off the south coast of the Korean peninsula, a self-governing province since 2006. It covers about 1,850 square kilometres and holds roughly 700,000 residents, with Jeju City on the north coast and Seogwipo on the south. The shield volcano Hallasan rises 1,947 metres at the centre, the highest peak in South Korea. UNESCO inscribed Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes as a World Heritage Site in 2007, citing Hallasan, the Geomunoreum lava-tube system, and the tuff cone of Seongsan Ilchulbong on the east coast.
The island is built almost entirely from basalt. About 1.8 million years of volcanic activity, with the most recent eruption around a thousand years ago, left a landscape of black lava walls, sea cliffs, and the dol hareubang, the carved stone grandfathers found at village entrances. The Geomunoreum lava tubes on the northeast carry one of the world's most extensive accessible systems of basaltic caves, with Manjanggul open to visitors for about a kilometre. Farmers stack the same basalt into low field walls that net the island's near-constant wind.
Hallasan's summit is reached by two main trails, Seongpanak from the east and Gwaneumsa from the north, both about ten kilometres one way, with cutoff gates that turn hikers back if they have not passed by mid-morning. Seongsan Ilchulbong on the east coast is climbed before dawn for the sunrise that gives it its name, Sunrise Peak. The haenyeo museum at Hado on the northeast coast covers the diving tradition; nearby villages still hold daily catch markets. The Jeju Olle walking trails run 437 kilometres along the entire coast.