Tasha Biggers Pottery & Gallery

On the way to the grocery one day I saw a sign saying pottery and gallery. Of course I took a detour. This berry bowl now has a new home.

Up on a hill with a super view of Mt. Yonah is Tasha Biggers Pottery and Gallery. To see the view of Mt. Yonah click on the link to Tasha's website.

Tasha's pottery and gallery are in the walkout basement of her home but the space is nothing at all like a basement. Lots of natural light floods the space from all the windows for a wonderful area to show pottery.

Tasha's has displayed her pots on a mix of vintage hutches and tables including a porcelain sink and cabinet which used to be her grandmother's.

The oblong table would be perfect in my new home but I couldn't talk Tasha out of it. She rescued it from a woodworker who thought it wasn't good enough. Unfortunately he doesn't do commissions.

Tasha's work area is ample and well lit. The pottery is open every Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and other times by appointment.

Here's Tasha working in her studio.

Tasha graciously agreed to throw a pot while I took photos.

Tasha fires her bisque in this electric Olympic kiln.

She does her glaze fire in this gas kiln located in the kiln shed adjacent her pottery and gallery. It was great to meet a local potter and talk shop.

Tasha's husband raises koi. If you visit the pottery be sure to look in the pond where there are some of the biggest koi I've ever seen. Nothing like a pottery visit to brighten a cloudy day.

I've been under the weather this past week or so. Up next is information about the workshop I'll (hopefully) be able to make it to in mid January. Meanwhile the weather has turned downright cold; tonight is supposed to get down to six degrees with snow predicted. We're wondering why we decided to move here with all this cold weather. I keep telling myself that Spring, Summer, and Fall will be perfect and make up for all this cold. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Bamboo & Koi in Selby Gardens

With a deep freeze covering most of the states and other parts of the world suffering in heat, I hope you can take a bit of respite in the garden rooms I've captured from the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota. Today we're walking through bamboo stands and relaxing by the coolness of the koi pond.

Koi, or nishikigoi, are ornamental varieties of domesticated common carp fish. In Japanese the word koi also has the meaning of love or friendship so koi are a symbol of love and friendship.

More garden rooms are around the corner, so stay tuned. This garden trip has stimulated and inspired many thoughts about work in clay but I'm letting my ideas percolate for a while. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Bathtub Koi Pond

A fellow blogger, Barbara, of Clay Garden remarked about my koi pond in a previous post. When we moved here there was an old bathtub which was used for a cattle watering trough. It was a huge, cast iron, claw foot tub, minus the feet. We wanted to dispose of it but it was too heavy to move very far even with a tractor. So we tried to think of how we could camoflauge the tub. We installed a bathtub koi pond with just the cost of a few fish, plants, some materials we had on hand, and some hard work.

When we made our parking area, I had an idea to make a turn around in the middle and thought about making a bathtub koi pond. Gary placed the bathtub on top of the ground with the tractor. We connected a PVC pipe to the bottom of the drain. We put the PVC pipe in in case we ever wanted to drain the tub. Then Gary piled some nice compost enriched soil all around the bathtub about two feet wide, right up to the top of the bathtub. We placed rocks we gathered on our property riprap fashion, around the soil to prevent erosion.


I planted shrubs on the east and west side of the tub to shade the water part of the day. I planted bottlebrush, cotoneaster parney and red yucca. If I had it to do over again I wouldn't use the bottle brush because the flowers drop in the pond and I have to keep cleaning the flowers out the pond. I put a rubber stopper in the bathtub drain and filled the tub full of water. I had some old ceramic molds and put them in the bathtub and placed water plants in pots on top of them. The water plants are fiber optic grass, pickerel rush, and penny wort. If a pond has more than 6 hours of sunlight a day, algae grows more easily. We let the tub "age" for about a month.

I purchased four very inexpensive koi and placed them in the pond. During the hottest part of summer the water in the tub stays cool. The soil surrounding the tub insulates it and the depth of the water helps keep it cool too. The plants put oxygen in the water and help to keep it clean. During the summer I regularly refill the water which evaporates. I found the copper float in our yard and placed it on a piece of rusty rebar as an ornamental sculpture. The image above was taken two summers ago. Notice the copper float is above the level of the shrubs. Now the shrubs are much taller than the float.


The koi were one inch long when I brought them home four years ago. One fish died the first week and a month later I found one fish skeleton on the ground. The other two fish, one solid orange and one orange and white, are now eight inches long and their bodies are getting nice and plump. They actually look like koi now instead of gold fish. When visitors come to my garden, they don't even notice the pond unless I point it out to them. A pond really attracts all kinds of wildlife to the garden. The first week I put the water in the pond, I saw water bugs in the pond and noticed birds and lizards visiting the pond to get a drink. One time I even saw two very large toads beside the pond. If you've ever thought of having a koi pond I recommend a bathtub koi pond.


Gaillardia 'Torchlight' or Blanket Flower is blooming in front of my studio right now. It's a member of the sunflower family and is drought tolerant. Blanket flower refers to the resemblance of brightly patterned Native American woven blankets. I know I promised a post on how I plan on hanging my wall panels. I finally got some more epoxy so I'll work on that post tomorrow.