Cape Kiwanda dune and sea stack
— — the dune that walks back into the sea.
Not only on a wall.
“A sandstone cape at Pacific City where the dune climbs from the beach to a soft yellow cliff. Dorymen launch their flat-hulled boats straight through the surf, the only fleet on the coast that still works this way. Offshore, Chief Kiwanda Rock holds the horizon. Afternoons the dune fills with footprints; mornings the wind has often taken them again.
Cape Kiwanda dune and sea stack, 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.
The place, in three passes.
Cape Kiwanda is a Tillamook sandstone headland on the central Oregon coast, immediately north of Pacific City. It anchors the southern end of the Three Capes Scenic Loop, with Cape Lookout and Cape Meares to the north. A massive shore dune rises against the cape's south face, climbing roughly 240 feet from the beach. The fishing village at its base is the last home of the Pacific City dory fleet, flat-bottomed boats launched directly off the sand into the surf without a harbour.
The cape is built of Astoria Formation sandstone, soft enough that the ocean carves it visibly between visits. Sea caves, arches, and hollowed amphitheatres open along the cliff face. The yellow-ochre rock reads warm against the cold green of the Pacific. Oregon State Parks closes the upper cape to foot traffic in places after fatal falls. The rock simply does not hold the weight of a misjudgement, and the surf below runs deep against the wall.
Chief Kiwanda Rock stands roughly a quarter mile offshore, a basalt sea stack that breaks the long Pacific swell before it reaches the beach. The break it creates is what made the dory launch possible in the first place. Wave heights here average 8 to 10 feet through winter and settle into a gentler summer pattern. The water reads jade in the shallows and deep grey-blue offshore, edged white where the swell meets the sandstone.