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Announcements, new member deals, and more. All the lists live on one page.
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Every summer we pick one new and unusual thing to make, and in 2027 it is lamps. Throw one, hand build one, go classic or go completely sideways. The one rule: what you turn in has to be a working lamp, with a working bulb in it.
Free to enter. Up to three pieces each, made here at The Clay Hole.
The deadline is Monday, June 7, 2027. A lamp base is thick, and thick clay dries slowly, so this is the contest where starting early pays the most.
Start whenever you like, this month or a whole year early. The only rules about time are the deadline and where you made it: every entry has to be made here at The Clay Hole.
A tall thrown base with a linen shade. A pierced sphere that throws spots of light across the room. A mushroom, a moon, an octopus holding a bulb. Classic, strange, tiny, enormous. It all counts.
What matters is that it works. Turn it in as a finished, functioning lamp with a working bulb in it. Shades are optional.
We already wrote a full University lesson on ceramic lamp bases, with six videos from six potters. Read it and watch the videos here. These are the parts that sink people.
Every measurement comes off the hardware, and the hardware will not bend to fit your pot. A lamp kit is a socket, a cord with a plug, a harp for a shade and usually some threaded pipe. We do not sell them, so this is the rare project where you shop before you throw. Use a UL-listed kit.
If yes, you need a short pipe at the top and a hand hole underneath. If no, you need a long pipe running the full height, which means a raised foot so the cord and nut can escape underneath.
Clay shrinks about twelve percent and glaze fills in what is left. Cut the top hole at 5/8 of an inch and the cord hole at 1/2 an inch, with a hole cutter, never a knife. Cut them after the glaze fire and you are standing over weeks of work with a diamond bit, hoping.
A shade is a sail on a lever, so give it thick walls and a wide foot. Dry it slowly. Wax both hole rims before you glaze so they stay open. It fires to cone 5½ like everything else here.
Wire it with a UL-listed kit and follow the instructions in the box. A lamp you are unsure about belongs at a lamp shop, not on your nightstand. Lanterns lit from inside count too, as long as a real bulb lights them.
Pierced, carved, glazed, sculpted. Some hide the bulb, some show it off. Tap any of them for a closer look.
These are illustrations, made to get ideas moving. None of them is an entry, and yours does not need to look like any of them.
More directions worth tryingNot the day you build it. A finished piece has to be built, dried all the way through, bisque fired, glazed and glaze fired, and every one of those steps takes real days. Pick when yours will be built and we will do the backward math.
Safe planning dates, not promises. Kiln queues move, and they move most right before a deadline. If yours is running close, tell an instructor early instead of the day before.
Almost every piece that misses a deadline missed it on the drying shelf, not the building table. Thick walls, solid parts and chunky bases need more time than you think. Read our guide to drying pottery before you wrap anything in plastic.
Thrown, hand built, made with slab molds, carved, or some mix of all of it. It has to be made at The Clay Hole, and that is the only rule about how.
Built, dried, bisque fired, glazed, glaze fired and wired, with a working bulb in it. Shade optional. Greenware and bisqueware are not eligible.
Any instructor or manager can hand you one. Fill it out. It is the whole entry form, and there is no fee.
Turn-ins open Friday, May 28. Bring it any time from then until the end of class on Monday, June 7. Set it on the contest display with the entry card folded in half and tucked under the piece.
Voting runs June 8 to 14 on our website. Your piece stays on display the whole week, and it goes home with you from Tuesday, June 15.
One entry per person fires free, as long as it measures 10 inches or less on its longest side, whichever way that runs. Bisque firing is always free here, so the free part is the glaze firing. Your other entries, and anything bigger, fire at the normal rate of 5 cents a cubic inch with a $4.80 minimum. Bigger pieces are completely welcome. The size limit is about the free firing, not the contest.
Voting happens on our website, from your phone, for seven days starting the morning after entries are due. A QR code at the contest display takes you straight to the ballot, and the ballot goes up on this page the day voting opens.
How much care went into the small stuff. Clean holes, a cord that exits neatly, a foot that sits flat, a seam you smoothed twice.
How good the idea was before a single hand touched clay, and how well it landed. A strange lamp that works beats a safe one every time in this category.
How creative or how meticulous the surface is, and how it looks with the light on. Glaze that glows, carving that throws shadows, one perfect line of underglaze.
One ballot per person. On it you choose your top three in each of the three categories, nine picks in all. Three picks instead of one stops a single favorite from sweeping everything on name recognition, and it gives the quieter entries a real way to win. Entry cards carry numbers, not names, so nobody knows whose piece is whose. Members and staff both vote.
Every entry is judged in all three categories at once. You do not pick a category, and one piece is allowed to win all three.
Every prize this year is a month at The Clay Hole. Most of them are months you get to give away to somebody who has never been a member, which makes this the rare contest where winning is mostly good news for a friend.
One free month of membership for you, at the Level you are already on, plus a second free month to give to a first-time member, at Yellow Level.
Every vote from all three categories goes into one pile, and the entry on top of that pile wins. It needs at least 15 entries across the whole contest to be awarded.
Win Attention to Detail, Creativity or Glazing and Finishing and you get a free month of Yellow Level membership, worth $170, to give to someone who has never been a member.
The highest scoring beginner wins a free month of Yellow Level membership to give to a first-time member. Beginners still compete for everything else too.
Winners get featured across our Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, in front of around 3 million people. One piece can win more than one prize. Category and beginner prizes are awarded however many people enter.
A finished, functioning lamp with a working bulb in it at turn-in. Shades are optional. Use a UL-listed lamp kit.
Every entry has to be made here. Start it whenever you like, even a year early. There is no start date, only the deadline.
Greenware and bisqueware are not eligible. It needs to be glaze fired, or otherwise completely finished, by the deadline.
Three different pieces per person. One of them fires free if it is 10 inches or less on its longest side.
Under three months of pottery, counted from when you started, not from when you joined. Beginners compete in every category and also for the beginner prize.
Entries stay on the contest display through voting week and go home with you from Tuesday, June 15.
No. Shades are optional. A bare bulb on a great base, or a lantern lit from inside, counts the same.
Hardware stores and lamp part suppliers both sell lamp kits. We do not. Buy the kit before you start, because every hole on the pot comes off its measurements. Our lamp base lesson explains which kit you need.
No. Wire it yourself with a UL-listed kit and follow the instructions in the box. If you are unsure, a lamp shop can wire it for you.
Most lamps are. It is completely eligible. It just fires at the normal rate instead of free.
Current members. The piece has to be made here at The Clay Hole.
Yes. There is no start date at all. You can work on your entry months ahead, or even finish it a year early, as long as you made it here.
Up to three different pieces. One of them fires free at 10 inches or less on its longest side. The rest fire at the normal rate.
The end of class on Monday, June 7, 10 PM. Turn-ins open Friday, May 28, ten days before.
Grab an entry card from any instructor or manager, fill it out, and leave your finished piece on the contest display with the card folded in half and tucked underneath it. That is the whole process.
Voting runs June 8 to 14 on our website. Scan the QR code at the display, or open this page during voting week. Everybody picks their top three in Attention to Detail, Creativity, and Glazing and Finishing. One ballot per person, and entries are numbered so voting stays anonymous.
Yes. If one entry tops all three categories, it takes all three. There is no rule spreading the prizes around.
The giveaway months go to someone who has never been a member of The Clay Hole, at Yellow Level. The top prize also includes a free month for you at your current Level.
The top prize is not awarded. Everything else still happens: we still vote, the category winners and the beginner winner still get their months to give away, and winners still get featured.
From Tuesday, June 15, the day after voting closes.
Buy the kit this week. Throw the base next week. The deadline is a long way off right up until it is not.
Four contests this year: Planters, Lamps, Fall Holidays & Autumn, Christmas & Winter. Every event of the year lives on our 2027 events page.
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