From Clay to Seed: How One Artist Grew a Garden of Fruit Trees
When Rebecca Koop saw an abandoned lot beside her pottery studio in Kansas City’s Northeast neighborhood, she imagined more than rubble and weeds. She envisioned a place where neighbors could grow food, plant trees, and gather together. Today that vision has blossomed into the St. John Community Garden and orchard, a testament to Rebecca’s lifelong commitment to art, gardening, and community.
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Step inside Backdoor Pottery in Kansas City’s historic Northeast neighborhood and you’ll sense both tradition and imagination at work. But even before you enter, the building itself tells a story. One side features a vibrant hand-painted mural by the artist herself, filled with tarot card figures that symbolize chapters of her life. The front is adorned with an elaborate mosaic created over years with the help of 46 volunteers. For nearly four decades, Rebecca has been shaping clay in this space, teaching students, and creating functional works of art. Just beyond her studio walls, another of her visions has flourished - a community garden and orchard that now nourishes both her creativity and her neighborhood.
In the early 2000s, the abandoned warehouse lot next door to Rebecca’s studio was condemned and torn down, leaving behind a barren stretch of land. Where others saw blight, Rebecca saw opportunity. A lifelong gardener and community organizer, she rallied friends and fellow artists to transform the lot into what would become the St. John Community Garden.
“It started small,” Rebecca recalls. “Just two or three beds, then five, then ten. Eventually we reached 48 garden beds, plus a pond and fruit trees.”
The vision was never just about vegetables. Early on, Rebecca and her fellow gardeners planted a few fruit trees each year including apples, cherries, Asian pears, peaches, figs, and pawpaws. Over time, with support from Kansas City Community Gardens and later The Giving Grove, the orchard took shape. Today, the trees along the garden’s north edge yield bountiful harvests for the gardeners who tend the space.
“The trees have been producing for about six years now,” Rebecca says. “We’ve had big crops of apples, cherries, Asian pears, even figs. The fruit is available to our gardeners, whether they eat it fresh, can it, or bake with it. It is another way the garden feeds our community.”
“Clay or seed, it is the same philosophy. You put your hands in, shape it, and wait for it to grow into something beautiful and useful.”
Rooted in Creativity and Community
Rebecca sees a natural connection between pottery and gardening. “Both are processes,” she explains. “You start with something small, a seed or a lump of clay, you nurture it, work with it, and eventually, you have a finished product. Both require patience, care, and creativity.”
She often sums it up this way: “Clay or seed, it is the same philosophy. You put your hands in, shape it, and wait for it to grow into something beautiful and useful.”
That perspective has shaped her work not only as a potter but as a steward of the community garden and orchard. The garden itself grew out of the artist community in the Northeast. Many of the early members were painters, potters, musicians, or performers, drawn to the hands-on, collaborative nature of the project. Today, the mix has expanded to include teachers, pharmacists, retirees, and young families, but the creative spirit remains at the heart of St. John Community Garden.
Building a Sustainable Legacy
The garden and orchard are more than just spaces to grow food. They are also gathering places. Northeast Arts KC, the nonprofit Rebecca has been involved with for more than 30 years, manages the garden as part of its mission to enrich community life through the arts. The space hosts concerts, picnics, and this fall, a 30th anniversary celebration complete with a Halloween party and bonfire.
Infrastructure has grown right along with the beds and trees. With grants from Kansas City Community Gardens, Rebecca and the team installed large water towers to collect rainwater from her studio’s roof, making irrigation sustainable even in the heat of summer. The garden’s southern exposure and thoughtful layout of beds and trees help maximize both sun and shade, ensuring vegetables and fruit alike thrive.
Still, managing a large community garden and orchard takes dedication. Rebecca often finds herself reminding gardeners to weed, organizing workdays for pruning and hauling brush, and looking for reliable neighbors who can commit long-term. “Good gardeners are gold,” she says with a smile. “When you find them, you hold on tight.”
Growing More Than Food
For Rebecca, the garden is as much about people as it is about produce. Having lived in the Northeast since childhood, she has seen the neighborhood evolve, welcoming waves of immigrants and new cultures over the decades. She believes the garden and orchard are a natural extension of that spirit of diversity and resilience.
“This has always been a community that welcomes refugees and immigrants,” she reflects. “That diversity is an asset. You see it in the people, the schools, even in the restaurants. The garden fits right into that, because it is about sharing, learning, and sustaining each other.”
Rebecca also sees the orchard as part of a larger conversation about sustainability and creativity. From using rainwater to keeping food local, from teaching pottery to offering garden plots for just $15 a year, her work reflects a belief in building community through resourcefulness and care.
“If this space can keep going, if people can keep being creative, keep growing food, then that is the legacy I want to leave for Kansas City”
Looking Ahead
After nearly 40 years at Backdoor Pottery and two decades of tending the garden next door, Rebecca is beginning to think about the future. “I have been doing this a long time,” she says. “At some point, I will need an exit plan. My hope is that Northeast Arts KC can continue to use this space as a teaching center and community hub, where people can keep growing food and making art.”
Until then, Rebecca continues to juggle her roles as potter, teacher, events director, gardener, and orchard steward. Whether she is shaping clay on the wheel, organizing a concert, or pruning apple trees, she remains deeply rooted in the neighborhood she has called home since age eleven.
“It is really about legacy,” she says. “If this space can keep going, if people can keep being creative, keep growing food, then that is the legacy I want to leave for Kansas City.”
