Tucked inside Tiaong, Quezon is Ugu Bigyan’s Pottery Garden and Restaurant. The building is a mix of brick, dark wood, and concrete painted sunflower yellow. Bigyan’s ceramics decorate the shelves and tables in lines of greens, browns, and oranges that mimic mountains and sunsets.

“My style is very natural,” described Bigyan. An accountant who chose craft over the office, he finds excitement in incorporating parts of nature he’s found into his work. “I’m always experimenting with something. Instead of putting the regular clay handle, I want to make it into roots, into twigs, or sometimes I’ll visit the sea and look for some nice shells or stones around the area and then I bring it back home and I use it in my pottery.”