Welcome to the St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour!

The St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour is an annual gathering of exceptional potters and pottery enthusiasts in the beautiful St. Croix River Valley of Minnesota. Always held on Mothers' Day weekend, The Tour is an opportunity to explore seven studios, each with distinctive character, and purchase pots from dozens of guest artists and nine host potters. The studios are a short drive from each other, allowing some or all to be visited in a single day, and within an hour drive of the Twin Cities. Admission is free and open to everyone.

Since its inception in 1993, The Tour has grown in size and popularity with a national reputation for excellence. Our host and guest potters come from a variety of ceramic traditions, using many different methods and approaches. The ceramics you will find on The Tour range from functional simplicity to decorative or sculptural, from rustic to refined, from whimsical to sublime. Guest potters have come from all over the United States and a few have even traveled internationally to participate, drawn by the enthusiastic, knowledgeable and warm energy of The Tour audience!

About the host sites

The seven host pottery sites are: Linda Christianson's unique studio and log home nestled in a clearing in the woods, Guillermo Cuellar's hilltop home and studio overlooking the St. Croix River where he works alongside his daughter Alana Cuellar, Peter Jadoonath’s studio with a view of big sky and rolling farm fields, Ani Kasten's pottery gallery-in-a-barn, Matt Krousey's picturesque, woodland home and studio, Jeff Oestreich's early Minnesota farmstead remade into a home and studio, and Will Swanson and Janel Jacobson's studio close by Wild River State Park. We are always thrilled to see familiar and new visitors each spring, and our open house approach gives everyone a unique chance to connect face-to-face.

The Tour takes place in the St. Croix River Valley of Minnesota. This region is the traditional homeland of the Dakota and holds great significance for Ojibwe and other Native peoples as well.

How we give back

The Tour makes contributions toward charitable causes as a self-supporting arts event that operates without grants or sponsors. Each year gives us the opportunity to support the wider ceramics community, and as Tour hosts we are actively considering how our event can assist in building more racial and gender equity in the field of ceramic arts. With this in mind, we have committed a portion of our annual giving to organizations working toward racial equity in ceramics. We hope to help build a solid and equitable future for anyone wanting to pursue a life in clay. 

Thank you to our audience, who makes our charitable giving possible. We invite you to learn more about these excellent organizations and join us in supporting them! A full list of donation recipients is available upon request.

Recent recipients of charitable donations include: