History • Identification • Collecting • Preservation
Discover the true story of Nemadji pottery.
Explore the Minnesota pottery’s history, identify the clues beneath each piece and meet the people who created its unmistakable swirls—with author and collector Michelle D. Lee.
Every swirl tells a story.Start with the pottery
Colorful pieces.
A complicated history.
Nemadji began as a tile company in Moose Lake in 1923. During the Depression, its swirl-painted pottery found a national tourist market—and gathered myths along the way. This site preserves the real history while helping collectors understand what they own.
Learn
The History
Follow Nemadji from Moose Lake to Kettle River, from tile to tourist pottery and through the plant’s closing in 2002.
↗Identify
Your Piece
Use marks, clay, form, finish and paint—not a single clue—to begin understanding a piece.
↗Explore
Special Lines
Discover Forest Impressions, Garden of the Gods, early red clay, tiles and other collector favorites.
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New, shrink-wrapped copies available
The collector’s guide that sets the record straight.
The Myth and Magic of Nemadji “Indian” Pottery brings together dozens of firsthand interviews, more than 80 photographs, 40 stamp-mark illustrations, factory history, identification guidance and a value guide.
Copies are limited. Please email Michelle before sending payment. PayPal, Venmo, personal checks and money orders are accepted.
The ten-cent discovery
One garage-sale pot started everything.
In 1983, shortly after moving to Moose Lake, Michelle found a little red-clay pot at the bottom of a cardboard box. Its black, robin’s-egg blue, yellow and red swirls raised question after question. The seller asked a dime for it. That ten-cent find grew into hundreds of pieces, interviews with former workers, a collectors club, a book—and a lifelong effort to preserve Nemadji history.
Meet Michelle and read her story →