The rumor mill

What the Hell Is Up With Other Utah Pottery Studios?

Lately the rumors about me and The Clay Hole have gotten loud. Here are the real numbers on the few worth answering, and an open invitation to anybody who is tired of all of it.

October 18, 20268 min read

By Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole in Draper, Utah.

Illustration of Dan Pearce in a gray beanie and a clay-covered apron, sitting at a pottery wheel beside a freshly thrown pot and staring at his phone in disbelief, in a sunny pottery studio.

According to the pottery grapevine in Utah, I am a fascinating man.

Apparently I hire almost nobody but eighteen-year-olds. My staff doesn’t know a kiln from a Crock-Pot, they all hate working for me, and they quit faster than I can learn their names. My studio is junk, held together with cheap AI. I am somehow trying to date every single member who walks through the door, which would be a genuinely impressive feat of scheduling for a guy who also has a whole studio to run. And I don’t care about art or artists. Not even a little.

I’m exhausted just reading about me.

And those are the nice ones.

There are others going around. Uglier ones, about what supposedly happens behind closed doors and what kind of man I supposedly am. I’m not going to repeat them here, and I’m not going to answer them. Some things don’t deserve the dignity of a response, and those sit right at the top of that list.

Here’s what I’ve noticed, though.

These rumors aren’t coming from strangers. They’ve been rampant lately, and they’re coming out of other pottery studios right here in Utah. Some of the very same studios that have taken in almost every person I’ve ever had to kick out of The Clay Hole.

People I removed for breaking the rules. For making the room worse for everybody in it. For general nastiness. For sexual harassment.

Hmmm.

I’m a potter, not a mathematician. But I’m pretty sure I can put two and two together on this one.

Before anybody fires off an angry email, I know it isn’t every studio. It probably isn’t even close. There are good people running good rooms all over this state, and if that’s you, I’m not talking about you.

But it’s enough of them that I’m writing this at one in the morning.

So let’s do this. The few rumors that deserve an answer get one, with real numbers.

The eighteen-year-olds.

I have twenty-two people on my team right now. Their average age is thirty-two.

22people on my team right now
32their average age
3 of 3paid main instructors with ceramics degrees

And no, I didn’t count myself. I would have dragged that average into a whole different zip code.

That rumor comes with a reason attached, by the way. I’m not going to type it out. Thirty-two is the whole answer.

The dating.

Members I have officially dated while they were a member: one.

One.

Not that it’s anyone’s business. I already wrote about it right here on this blog, in more detail than anybody needed, and anybody who thinks I’m working my way down the membership list is welcome to go read it.

The untrained staff.

All three of my paid main instructors have degrees in ceramics. My studio manager has a degree in studio management.

Our trade instructors don’t get into the program at all until they pass a set level of skill. Once they’re in, they’re learning by teaching and teaching what they learn, which is about the best way I know to get good at anything.

Untrained is a funny word for a team with that many degrees on it.

The turnover.

Our turnover is very low now that the team is dialed in.

Getting there took time. It always does, because it takes time to find and let go of the people who aren’t team players. The negative ones. The toxic ones. The ones who are inconsistent, or who just don’t show up. That’s true of any new business that hires a whole crowd of people at the same time, which is exactly how a brand new studio this size opens its doors.

Now add the fact that my team is made up of artists, and that a whole lot of us are wonderfully neuro-spicy (me very much included). We’re doing pretty great.

The cheap AI.

Okay, fine. Guilty on one count.

The bathroom signs. Yep. Those were AI, and they were meant to be ironic and funny and obvious, and they were only ever temporary placeholders. They’re being switched out.

I’m not against AI. I’m against the unethical parts of AI, and I wrote a whole post about where I draw that line.

(And yes, the cartoon of me at the top of this post is AI too. It’s also the best my beard has ever looked.)

The artists.

This one is half true, so I want to be really clear about it.

I do not care about artists. I care about humans who want to do art.

I care about humans who are awesome and trying and positive and fun to hang out with. But artists, as a category? Not even a little. There are awesome artists, and there are absolutely toxic artists, and I have zero respect for the small minority who are so loud that nobody else in the room feels safe having a voice.

Which is a funny thing to hear from a guy who just bragged about his instructors’ ceramics degrees. I like artists fine. I just don’t care about the title.

I built The Clay Hole for the good people. My people. The ones who want to come have a great time and find a great community. Artists are welcome here. Wanted here, even. So long as they aren’t giant turds.

There’s nothing noble to me about being an artist. There’s something very noble about being a kind, good human.

There’s nothing noble to me about being an artist. There’s something very noble about being a kind, good human.

So here’s what I want to ask anybody who is hearing these rumors, or passing them along. Especially the ones that started with somebody who got themselves kicked out of The Clay Hole.

Are you being fair?

Is any of it based on something you’ve experienced yourself?

Have you ever bothered to look into The Clay Hole at all?

Have you ever bothered to get to know me?

Have you ever looked through our windows during a class, at all those happy, engaged, ridiculously cool people?

And aren’t you tired? Of the negativity, and of needing to hate and fight me and this place without a single experience of your own telling you to?

I built this place with about a hundred ideas for how to work with the other studios, so that all of us could build the pottery world in Utah together.

I still want that.

I’ve written positive, fair comparison guides. I built a page listing every pottery studio in Utah I could find. My own city pages name the other studios nearby as real options, and my page for Alpine tells people that if they can get a seat at the studio in their own town, they should take it.

I’ve done that even for studios that have been vitriolic, or flat-out gross, in how they’ve treated me and my business.

Why?

Because I’ve long believed there’s plenty enough for everyone. Because nothing good ever comes out of the fighting. And because I can’t be part of a problem that hurts my heart this much to watch.

So what is going on with the other studios in Utah?

My studio is amazing. It’s filled with amazing, happy, good-energy people.

That didn’t happen in a vacuum.

It meant getting rid of people who wanted to be part of it and also wanted to ruin it for everyone else. It meant becoming some people’s perceived enemy. It meant hurting feelings, because nobody wants to be kicked out of anything. I get that. I’d be hurt too.

And I hate kicking people out. I hate it every single time.

But it’s a fight I’ll never stop fighting. I will not let a few people ruin what I’ve built, or ruin it for everybody else who comes here. Nobody has ever paid me enough money for that to be worth it.

So here’s what happens when you scoop up the people I’ve kicked out.

You get their negativity. You get their lies. You get their nastiness. You get all of it.

Oh, I’m sure they’ll be plenty wonderful at first. Most of them were wonderful here, too.

But with time, you’ll see how much damage they’re doing to your studio. It won’t happen with a bang. It’ll happen with a whisper, one week at a time, until all the wrong vibes are running your room and nobody can say when it started.

I’m speaking from experience. There’s a reason I fight it forever. I know what a slow-moving cancer those people can be.

It won’t happen with a bang. It’ll happen with a whisper, one week at a time.

Anyway.

That’s not my problem anymore.

I’m going to keep doing my thing over here. I’m going to try to stay positive, even with all these rumors and hurtful things floating around, and even on the days they land harder than I’d like.

And I want to invite anybody who’s tired of that dynamic at another studio to come try on what we have here. The positivity. The laughing. The fun times. Surely all that negative energy has to get tiring.

I hope you’ll come join us.

See it for yourself. Meet me for yourself. Do pottery here for yourself.

You’re gonna like what you find.

I’ll be the one in the beanie or the man bun.

See how membership works →

Dan Pearce

Founder of The Clay Hole

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Dan Pearce, author, artist, and potter, at work on pottery at The Clay Hole studio in Draper, Utah

About the author

Dan Pearce

Founder of The Clay Hole · Draper, Utah

Dan Pearce is an author, artist, and the founder of The Clay Hole in Draper, Utah. Before pottery, he spent a decade as one of the most-read bloggers in the world. His blog, Single Dad Laughing, ranked #2 among personal blogs worldwide and drew more than a billion reads before he retired it in 2020. He has published six books, including the memoir The All-Important, Well-Fed, Giant White Man, and built an audience of more than three million followers. He has also worked professionally as an animal artist, illustrator, body painter, and poker player. Not in that order, and yes, all of those are real.

In 2022 he launched Dan Pearce Ceramics, known for one-of-a-kind pieces he has never once duplicated, and every sale went toward building The Clay Hole: 10,000 square feet, more than a million dollars invested, and a community of hundreds of members built from the ground up to put people first. Of everything he has made in twenty-five years of chasing creative work, he considers the community the best of it.

The full story, wins and faceplants included →