About Us

Nodd Pottery Art School was founded in 2016 as a community art initiative. Our mission is to provide affordable and accessible art education to our community and its youth. We offer a regular weekly practice schedule that allows students to sign up and learn at their convenience and pace, rather than being stuck in an expensive, rigid program.

Nodd Pottery has worked with a variety of organizations including the Syrian Community Network, Redwood Day School, and Trilogy Behavioral Healthcare Center. Our goal is to provide access to a space where people with special needs can explore a new and unique medium in a peaceful and accommodating setting.

If your organization is interested in working with Nodd Pottery Art school, email Sarah@noddpottery.com

Meet our crew!

Sarah is the founder of Nodd Pottery Art School. While working with clay for most of her life, she somehow found herself thrown into a pottery class at the Hartford Art School during her freshman year of college. Since then, she has spent her career teaching art education to children and adults alike in numerous art studios around Chicagoland, including a volunteer stint with Project Onward at the Bridgeport Art Center. She moved to Rogers Park to join the beautiful, diverse community and provide affordable and flexible access to ceramics education. She built Nodd Pottery from the ground up, and over the years established partnerships with organizations to provide programming for disadvantaged and neurodivergent youth and adults.

Sarah Ortlieb

Founder and Lead Instructor

Julie is a multidisciplinary artist but her true love is ceramics. She took her first ceramic class in 2006-2007 during her junior year of high school and never looked back. Her journey through this medium has taken her from California to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago were she earned her BFA in Ceramics in 2017. Eventually she moved to Rogers Park and in 2021 found Nodd Pottery and the surrounding community of artists. Julie currently serves on the board as the Resident Artist Liaison and instructor.

Julie Izumi

Director of Residency and Instructor

Impart | She Art

Video by Megan Mckinley