Northern Clay Center American Pottery Festival 2023

American Pottery Festival is Northern Clay Center’s annual fundraiser. It serves as a mindfully-forged platform to bring together makers, clay lovers, learners, collectors, and simply the curious, to play and be inspired. The American Pottery Festival Preview is your first chance to see and buy work by our visiting APF artists in the gallery, until APF Opening Night on Friday, September 8.

The American Pottery Festival is Northern Clay Center’s annual fundraiser. All contributions support NCC’s mission of advancement of the ceramic arts for artists, learners, and the community through education, exhibitions, scholarships, and grant programs. It serves as a mindfully-forged platform to bring together makers, clay lovers, learners, collectors, and simply the curious, to play and be inspired.

The American Pottery Festival Preview is your first chance to see and buy work by our visiting APF artists in the gallery, until APF Opening Night on Friday, September 8. Please join us for this special opportunity—while we may not know what autumn will hold for our in-person APF event, we do know that May is your month to visit the gallery and enjoy a sneak peek!

Annually, NCC extends invitations to artists with diverse representation as a priority. These artists represent rich, lived experiences and varying perspectives whose pots display a vast array of techniques, aesthetics, and materials as well as pathways to a career in clay. The richness of experience, knowledge, and generosity represented by 2023’s artists will provide learning opportunities for everyone, from student to collector to fellow maker. The weekend is filled with opportunities to engage directly with artists during image presentations, workshops, lectures, panel discussions, and casual gallery chats. Scholarships are available for all workshops.

Opening Night:

To kick off the American Pottery Festival, Northern Clay Center invites you to their opening day, where you will see old friends and new, meet artists, and shop for great pottery!

Appetizers, a cash bar, and the first look at over a thousand amazing pots. APF is NCC's largest annual fundraiser. Money raised at APF goes to support the advancement of the ceramic arts through our education, exhibitions, outreach, and artist services programming.

For those who cannot attend APF in person, and would like access to all of the work in the galleries at NCC (not just those offred online), we offer our Personal Shopping Service. Registration deadline for this service is Wednesday, August 30, but we highly encourage early registration. This service is free, but a $25 ticket fee will accompany work purchased on Friday. There is no ticket fee for artworks purchased on Saturday or Sunday should they still be available at that time.

Ticket Price: $25

Exhibition and Sales:

Packed with more glitz than the Midway, hundreds of pieces by this year's American Pottery Festival (APF) guest artists, as well as the artists represented full time in the sales gallery, will be available online starting on Saturday, September 9 at 10am CT.  

For those who cannot attend APF in person, and would like access to all of the work in the galleries at NCC (not just those offered online), we offer our Personal Shopping Service. Registration deadline for this service is Wednesday, August 30, but we highly encourage early registration. This service is free, but a $25 ticket fee will accompany work purchased on Friday. There is no ticket fee for artworks purchased on Saturday or Sunday should they still be available at that time.

Event dates:

September 9th: 10am – 5pm

September 10th: 10am – 3pm

Artist Talks:

Each day, we'll set aside time to listen to some of this year's dazzling APF guest artists. All talks will take place in NCC's library and via Zoom and are listed in Central Time.
 

Saturday, September 9
 11:30 am Chris Alveshere
 1:30 pm Shikha Joshi
 2:30 pm Studio Touya
 3:30 pm Michaela Bromberek
 4:30 S.C. Rolf 

Sunday, September 10
 11:30 am Bianka Groves
 12:30 pm Lee Love
 1:30 pm Kristina Batiste

 Image: Shikha Joshi