Isle of Skye
— rock and weather, mostly rock.
Not only on a wall.
“The largest of the Inner Hebrides, reached by a short bridge from Kyle of Lochalsh since 1995. The Cuillin ridge runs down the western half in dark gabbro and the rest of the island folds into sea-lochs and basalt cliffs. Weather changes by the hour. Portree, the small painted harbour town, holds about 2,500 people and most of the kettles on the island.
Isle of Skye, 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.
Skye is the largest island of the Inner Hebrides, lying off the northwest coast of the Scottish mainland. The Skye Bridge, opened in 1995 at Kyle of Lochalsh, replaced the old ferry crossing and made the island reachable by car. The island covers roughly 1,656 square kilometres and holds a population of around 10,000, most of them along the eastern coast around Portree. Gaelic is still spoken by a small share of residents, and place-names across the map remain Gaelic in origin.
The Cuillin form two distinct ranges along the southwest. The Black Cuillin are gabbro and basalt, the eroded roots of a 60-million-year-old volcano, and contain eleven Munros above 3,000 feet, with Sgùrr Alasdair at 992 metres the highest. The Red Cuillin, separated by Glen Sligachan, are granite and weather to rounder shapes. North of the ridge the Trotternish Peninsula carries the Old Man of Storr and the Quiraing, both products of a massive landslip still creeping a few centimetres each year.
Skye's weather sits in the path of the North Atlantic, which means rain on roughly 200 days a year and wind that shapes the trees along the coast. The best light tends to be in the hours after a front passes, when the cloud breaks over the ridge and the sea-lochs turn slate-and-silver. June holds the longest days, with the sun setting after 10pm at midsummer; February is the storm month. The island has no light pollution to speak of and is a recognised dark-sky destination.