USS Arizona Memorial Oahu Ceramic Art Tile

A white structure that bridges, without touching, the sunken hull of a battleship. Designed by Alfred Preis in 1962, it dips in the middle and rises at the ends, suggesting the line of American sentiment before, during, and after the morning of December 7, 1941. Inside the shrine room, 1,177 names are carved into the marble wall. The ship below still gives up about nine quarts of oil a day, slow black drops that rise to the surface. Visitors come on a free Navy shuttle from the visitor center. Most do not say much when they arrive.

Slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, in our family studio in Knoxville, Tennessee.