Honu on Lava Reef Big Island Ceramic Art Tile

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.

Honu is the Hawaiian word for the Hawaiian green sea turtle, Chelonia mydas. It is a distinct population of green sea turtle found in the central Pacific, listed as Threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and culturally significant in Hawaiian tradition as an ʻaumakua, or family guardian.

Honu come ashore to warm themselves on heated volcanic rock and sand. Hawaiian green sea turtles are one of the few sea turtle populations in the world to do this regularly. The behaviour helps them conserve energy, raise their body temperature for digestion, and may help females speed up egg development.

Punaluʻu Black Sand Beach, on the southeast coast in the Kaʻū district, is the most reliable basking site on the Big Island. Honu also haul out at Kīholo Bay on the Kona side, and they are commonly seen in the water at Honokōhau Beach inside Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park.

NOAA Fisheries asks viewers to keep at least ten feet of distance from a basking honu. Touching, feeding, or harassing a sea turtle is a federal offence under the Endangered Species Act, and locals at Punaluʻu will often set up a quiet rope perimeter around an animal.

Black sand on the Big Island is fragmented basalt, formed when molten lava from Kīlauea and Mauna Loa flowed into the cold Pacific and shattered on contact. The Big Island's south coast holds the youngest beaches of this kind in the United States, and Punaluʻu is the most accessible.

An ʻaumakua in Hawaiian tradition is an ancestral or family guardian spirit that takes the form of an animal. Many Hawaiian families consider the honu their ʻaumakua, watching over them at sea. The turtle appears widely in Hawaiian petroglyphs and in chant.

Basking continues through every season but is most frequent from late spring through early fall, when sand and rock temperatures are highest. Mornings and early afternoons are the most reliable windows. Cloudy days reduce the number of turtles that come ashore.

It has been a meaningful gift for many of our customers with ties to the islands. The honu carries deep family meaning in Hawaiian tradition as an ʻaumakua, and a tile of a turtle on the lava reef holds the coast and the culture together. A Small or Medium with a handwritten note from the studio carries well.

The deep blacks of the volcanic rock and the green and ochre tones of the honu's shell sit well in coastal-modern, biophilic, and mid-century rooms. The piece reads naturally against natural wood, woven textures, and warm white plaster, and it holds its own in darker rooms that already carry weight.

Biophilic design, the practice of bringing living textures and natural forms into interiors, has been one of the most steady directions in décor for the last five years. An animal-on-stone image fits the brief: it reads as creature and place at once, which is what biophilic rooms reward.

Above a standard 84-inch sofa, a single Large reads as a focal point, and a 4-tile Mural fills the width with room to breathe on either side. Above a 60-inch console, the Medium and the 9-tile Mural both work; the 9-tile gives a bigger statement piece.

Yes. The Dura Satin finish has a soft sheen and is scratch-resistant; the Matte has no sheen at all. Both are suited to bathroom walls, kitchen backsplashes, and shower installations. The Glossy finish is for dry wall and framed pieces.

A soft microfibre cloth and water. The colour is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure and lives beneath a thin protective finish, so no scrubbing or solvents are needed. For kitchen or bathroom installations, a mild soap is fine.

Yes. The Honu on Lava Reef piece was made by Reid Wender, the curator of the WenderVista atlas, in our distinctive stained-glass and alcohol-ink visual language. The work is not licensed from a third party and is exclusive to Wender Studios.