Three Ravens Pottery

Keep your eyes open starting August 15th
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FIND HIDDEN TREASURES: Starting on Rockford Day, August 15, approximately 150 handmade ceramic treasures will be hidden throughout parks, walking paths, shopping districts, and public spaces across the Rockford area. Created by local artists, each one-of-a-kind piece is free to find and keep. The inaugural CharmQuest 815 celebrates 815 Pride, encouraging the community to explore, connect, and celebrate the creativity that makes Rockford and Northern Illinois unique. Keep your eyes open - you never know where you'll discover one!

Womanspace invites the public on a quest for hidden charms throughout Rockford

Day four of Under the Sea & Mythical Waters camp.

All week our campers have been building skills... pinch pots, coiling, slab work... and yesterday we introduced one final technique: extruding. Then we brought it all together and made rain sticks.

Flip one over and close your eyes. You can hear it... the soft, quiet sound of a light rain falling. And that's just at the greenware stage.

Imagine how beautiful they'll sound once they've been glaze fired and become official ceramic pottery.

⏰ Last call for Under the Sea! A few seats are still available in our July summer camp... and it kicks off THIS MONDAY!

A week of clay, creativity, and all things ocean & mythical waters awaits. Campers will handbuild sea-inspired creatures in the morning and get their hands on the wheel in the afternoon. It's messy, magical, and totally unforgettable.

Snag one of the last spots before they're gone!
threeravenspottery.com

Day 5. The final day. And what a week it has been.

Today was all about finishing touches...our handbuilders applied their final coats of color, and our wheel throwers got to decorate some huge vases. There is something really moving about watching a studio full of kids put the last details on something they made with their own hands. Every piece is different. Every piece is completely, unmistakably theirs.

But the story isn't over yet. All of this work will spend time drying before heading into a bisque fire. After that, our instructors will dip each piece in glaze and fire everything one final time, and that's when the real magic happens. Colors deepen, surfaces transform, and clay becomes something that will last.

We can't wait to see the finished results. And we have a feeling this crew can't either.

Day 4 at pottery camp!

Our handbuilders took every technique they've learned this week (pinching, coiling, slab building) and brought them all together into one project: a tic tac toe board with built-in storage for the pieces. Watching kids connect the dots between skills they've been building all week and apply them to something functional and fun is exactly why we do this.

Over on the wheels, our throwers got more time doing what they love, and then pushed a little further. Today they learned how to add to an existing thrown form to create something entirely new.

One more day to go. Tomorrow is all about glazing, finishing, and showing off everything this crew has made. We cannot wait.

Day 3 at pottery camp

Our handbuilders pressed bark, leaves, flowers, and feathers into their clay today to create one-of-a-kind textures...and then learned a brand new technique: slab building, to turn those beautiful surfaces into actual mugs. No two pieces look alike, and every mug carries its own little piece of the natural world.

Some campers brought their own treasures from home. The rest came from pieces we had in the studio or that were generously donated by members of our community, and that meant so much. This is exactly the kind of place Three Ravens is: people showing up for each other and for the kids.

Over on the wheels, our throwers spent today adding surface designs to the pieces they've built over the past two days. The transformation from raw thrown form to something personal and finished is really something to see.

Two more days to go. The work coming out of this studio is already something special.

Day 2 at pottery camp and the studio is full of good things happening.

Our wheel throwers cleaned up yesterday's pieces and jumped into a new challenge...bowls. Watching kids figure out how to open up a form and coax the walls outward is one of our favorite things to see.

Meanwhile our handbuilders had their first coil building lesson today. There is something so satisfying about rolling a coil, stacking it up, and watching a vessel grow from nothing.

We still have three more days of creating ahead of us and we genuinely cannot wait to see what everyone makes by Friday!