Walpi village
— — stone houses on the end of a long mesa.
Not only on a wall.
“Walpi sits at the narrow end of First Mesa, about 300 feet above the desert floor in Hopi country. The village has been continuously inhabited since around 1690, when families moved up from the foot of the mesa for safer ground. Stone and adobe houses, kivas, no electricity or running water in the village itself. Visitors come only on the guided walking tour from the Ponsi Hall visitor center. No photography, no sketching. One of the oldest continuously inhabited places in North America. from the studio
Walpi village, 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.
Walpi is a Hopi village at the western tip of First Mesa, in Navajo County on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. First Mesa is one of three sandstone mesas (with Second and Third Mesa) that hold the Hopi villages; Walpi stands roughly 300 feet above the desert floor on a finger of mesa so narrow that houses sit at the edge of the cliff on both sides. The present village was established around 1690, when residents moved up from a lower site after the Pueblo Revolt to a more defensible position. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in North America.
Houses at Walpi are built from coursed sandstone quarried locally and finished with adobe plaster, raised one and two stories with flat roofs and ladder access. Kivas — partly subterranean ceremonial chambers entered by ladder through a roof hatch — are set among the houses. The village has no piped water, no electricity, and no paved roads within it; water has historically been carried up from springs at the base of the mesa. Walking the lane that runs the length of the village, the cliff is visible through gaps between houses on both sides.
Walpi is open to visitors only on guided walking tours led by Hopi guides from the First Mesa Consortium's Ponsi Hall visitor center in Sichomovi, the village just east along the mesa. Tours are offered most days outside of ceremonial closures; check current hours before driving up. Photography, video recording, sketching, and audio recording are prohibited throughout the village, as is collecting any object. Ceremonial dances at Walpi and elsewhere on First Mesa are sometimes open to respectful visitors and sometimes closed; the consortium publishes current status.