Punchbowl Cemetery Oahu Ceramic Art Tile
— the city's noise stops at the rim.
Not only on a wall.
“The volcanic crater the Hawaiians called Puowaina, the Hill of Sacrifice, held above Honolulu like a bowl. Inside, more than fifty thousand white markers set flush with the grass, in long quiet rows. The memorial at the head of the crater names twenty-eight thousand more, missing from the Pacific and Korea and Vietnam. Ernie Pyle is buried here. So is Ellison Onizuka. The lookout at the rim shows Diamond Head and the Pacific in one wide breath. The wind comes in from the harbor. Nobody talks much.
Punchbowl Cemetery 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.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific occupies the floor of the Puowaina Crater, an extinct tuff cone above downtown Honolulu on the island of Oahu. The crater formed in a volcanic eruption an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, and its rim rises about 500 feet above the city. Native Hawaiians called the place Puowaina, the Hill of Sacrifice. The cemetery covers 116 acres and was dedicated on September 2, 1949, four years after the Japanese surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri in nearby Pearl Harbor. The entrance is at 2177 Puowaina Drive, a winding climb up from the Punchbowl neighborhood. Admission is free.
Inside the crater walls, the rhythm of Honolulu drops out. Coaches and traffic thin at the gates and the wind comes off the harbor through the western opening. More than fifty thousand veterans of the Pacific, Korean, and Vietnam wars rest here under markers set flat to the grass, a quiet uniformity that keeps the field unbroken from any one angle. Among them are war correspondent Ernie Pyle, killed by machine-gun fire on Ie Shima in April 1945, and astronaut Ellison Onizuka, who was lost in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in January 1986. Visitors keep their voices down without being asked.
The cemetery is open to the public daily, with gate hours that shift by season: typically 8:00 to 5:30 from October through February and 8:00 to 6:30 the rest of the year. There is no admission fee. The Memorial Walk leads up from the burial field to the Honolulu Memorial at the head of the crater, where the Courts of the Missing carry the names of more than 28,000 service members missing from the wars in the Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam. A short trail continues to the rim lookout, which gives the city's clearest view of Diamond Head and the harbor. Visitors are asked to behave as in any active cemetery: no picnicking, no jogging, no pets.