Kapiolani Banyans Oahu Ceramic Art Tile
— the shade a tree builds out of itself.
Not only on a wall.
“A grove of Indian banyans inside Hawaii's first public park, between Waikīkī Beach and the slope of Lēʻahi. King Kalākaua opened the grounds in 1877. The thing about a banyan is that the branches put down roots, and the roots become trunks, and after a century the tree is no longer a tree but a room. The Kapiʻolani specimens are protected under the state's Exceptional Tree Act. People sit under them with thermoses, with strollers, with paperbacks. Nobody hurries through.
Kapiolani Banyans Oahu 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.
Kapiʻolani Park covers about 300 acres of Honolulu's southeastern coast, between Waikīkī Beach and the volcanic ridge of Lēʻahi, better known as Diamond Head. King David Kalākaua dedicated the park on Kamehameha Day, June 11, 1877, naming it for his wife, Queen Kapiʻolani; it remains the oldest public park in the Hawaiian Islands. The land was marsh and royal taro ground before the kingdom drained the lagoons and planted the lawns. Today the park holds the Honolulu Zoo, the Waikiki Shell amphitheatre, several softball diamonds, and the open green where Indian banyans share their shade with joggers, picnickers, and outrigger crews.
The species is Ficus benghalensis, the Indian banyan, introduced to Hawaii by missionaries from India in 1873. What makes a banyan a banyan is the way the branches send aerial roots straight down; those roots reach the soil, thicken, and become new trunks, until a single tree spreads sideways into a colonnade. The canopy at Kapiʻolani filters the afternoon light into a steady half-shade several degrees cooler than the open lawn around it. The air under the tree feels held rather than moved. Bulbuls, doves, and Japanese white-eyes work the higher branches, and the ground stays patterned with circles of sun the size of plates.
The park sits at the eastern end of Waikīkī, about 3 miles from downtown Honolulu and a short walk from the surf at Queen's Beach. Entry is free and the grounds are open through the day; the banyans cluster along Kalākaua Avenue, around the zoo, and behind the bandstand. A prominent grove flanks the path toward the Waikīkī Shell. Several of these trees are designated under Hawaiʻi's Exceptional Tree Act, passed by the State Legislature in 1975 (Act 105) to protect trees of significant age, size, location, or cultural value. Honolulu's Division of Urban Forestry administers the program, and the older Kapiʻolani specimens have been on the list for decades.