Makaha Beach Oahu Ceramic Art Tile
— the wave the cliffs hear coming.
Not only on a wall.
“The crescent of sand on the leeward side of Oʻahu, where the Waiʻanae Range comes down to the Pacific and the swell builds along a reef offshore. In winter the waves come tall, the kind that drew the first International Surfing Championships here in 1954. In summer the water turns languid and warm. Buffalo Keaulana taught his sons to ride canoes through this surf, and their families still hold a classic here each winter. Locals know the beach belongs to them. Visitors slow the car along Farrington Highway, park on the shoulder, and watch the Pacific arrive.
Makaha Beach 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.
Mākaha Beach sits on the leeward, western shore of Oʻahu, about 35 miles west of Honolulu in the moku of Waiʻanae. The Waiʻanae Range climbs sharply behind it, topped by Mount Kaʻala at 4,025 feet, the highest point on the island. Farrington Highway runs the coast, and Mākaha Beach Park, managed by the City and County of Honolulu, holds a half-mile crescent of golden sand fronting a deep, sloping shorebreak. The Hawaiian word *mākaha* carries the sense of *fierce*; the place has been a Native Hawaiian surfing ground for centuries. The beach faces open Pacific, with no offshore reef shielding it, the geometry that builds the winter wave.
The signature wave at Mākaha builds at Mākaha Point Surf, a reef break that holds form on north and west swells and was the competition site for the first Mākaha International Surfing Championships in 1954. December through February brings the largest faces, with wave heights on the biggest swells running over 20 feet. The shorebreak directly at the sand is its own creature: short, heavy, fast, and quick to pull on the return. The water in the bay sits between roughly 75 and 80°F through most of the year, clear and warm. Lifeguards staff the County beach park during daylight hours.
Buffalo's Big Board Classic, founded by Richard 'Buffalo' Keaulana in 1977, returns to Mākaha each winter for an annual gathering of longboarders, tandem riders, canoe surfers, and the Keaulana family. The contest format is loose by surfing-competition standards, and intentionally so: the event is as much a family reunion of the Waiʻanae coast as it is a contest. Before it, the Mākaha International Surfing Championships ran from 1954 into the 1970s and helped seed the modern professional circuit. The beach's rhythm tracks the year. Summer is for swimming and the canoe clubs. Fall and winter belong to the swell.