Green Sand Papakolea Big Island Ceramic Art Tile
— — the green the old volcano left behind.
Not only on a wall.
“A crescent of olive-green sand at the foot of a half-collapsed cinder cone called Puʻu Mahana, four kilometres east of Ka Lae, the southernmost point of the United States. The colour is olivine, a silicate mineral that erodes out of the cone and stays behind while the lighter ash washes back to the Pacific. There is no road in. From the parking area at South Point the walk is about five miles round trip across windswept pasture, or a local 4WD pickup if one is running. Most people who come this far come for the colour.
Green Sand Papakolea Big Island Ceramic Art Tile, 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.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Papakōlea sits inside Mahana Bay on the south coast of Hawaiʻi Island, in the district of Kaʻū. The beach is enclosed by the partially eroded walls of Puʻu Mahana, a small cone on the southwest flank of Mauna Loa estimated to have formed roughly 49,000 years ago. The walk from the gravel parking area near Ka Lae (South Point) is about 2.5 miles each way along open coastal pasture, which is held in trust by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. There are no facilities, no shade, and the path is exposed to a steady south wind off the open Pacific.
The sand reads green because it is almost pure olivine, a magnesium-iron silicate that crystallises in basaltic lavas. When the seaward wall of Puʻu Mahana broke open, surf began grinding the cone apart; the lighter glass and pumice were carried offshore, while the denser olivine crystals stayed behind and accumulated in the bay. Locals sometimes call the crystals Hawaiian diamonds for the pale, forsteritic shade. Only a handful of true green-sand beaches exist worldwide, including Talofofo Beach on Guam and Punta Cormorant on Floreana Island in the Galápagos, but Papakōlea is generally considered the most uniformly green of them.
Access begins at the end of South Point Road, off the Hawaiʻi Belt Road about 12 miles south of Naʻālehu. The lot is unpaved and unsupervised; many rental car companies forbid driving the road, although it is legal public access. The 2.5-mile coastal trail to the cone is open at all hours and free. Local Hawaiian Home Lands beneficiaries sometimes offer a private 4WD shuttle for a fee; the practice is informal and not endorsed by the state. Pack water and sun protection, since there is no shade once you leave the parking area.