Frequently asked questions.
Find answers fast.
Every question we get asked, answered properly — membership, classes, clay, glazes, and what actually happens on your first day. Start typing and the matching answers come to you.
Still stuck? Text us at 385-241-5528 and we’ll answer during class hours.
What are you here to find out?
The basics
What this place is, where it is, and when you can be in it.
What is The Clay Hole?
A community pottery and art studio in Draper, Utah — nearly 10,000 square feet of it. Pottery is the main event, with workshops in other art forms running alongside it.
The Clay Hole was built with two goals. The first was to make the most extraordinary community pottery studio that ever existed, and we think we managed it.
The second matters more: community, even above the pottery. Somewhere anyone could turn up and find new friends, a second family, or — dare we say it — love. Community is genuinely hard to find now. Dating is tedious. Friendships take work most of us don’t have time for; it takes 200+ hours with someone to become real friends. So this is a place where you can come and find your people, and your people can come and find you.
Which is why it isn’t just wheels and worktables. There are couches you can disappear into, game tables, lounge areas, and quiet corners for when you need one.
The way in is a monthly membership, which means you get to keep coming back and the people around you become familiar faces rather than strangers. We can’t wait to meet you, and neither can the rest of your class.
Where are you located?
Draper, Utah, on the frontage road near IKEA — easy to reach from just about any direction.
12896 S Pony Express Rd, Suite #100
Draper, UT 84020
Who is Dan Pearce?
Our founder. Dan has one of the biggest pottery followings online — more than 3.1 million across three platforms (@theclayhole on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook), where our team makes and shares reels about pottery.
He has been making and selling pottery online since 2022, and ran a much smaller version of this business out of a very small but very loaded studio for three years before The Clay Hole existed. Before he was a potter he wrote a blog called Single Dad Laughing that had millions of readers.
Mostly, though, he is a lover of humans and the human experience. He has been fortunate and doesn’t need this business, but something had been calling at him for a very long time to build the thing that brings people together like this. He calls it his final hurrah before retirement, and reckons there’s no better way to hit the twilight years running.
What do I actually get access to?
- Thousands of pottery tools, and we do mean thousands*
- More than 650 commercial glazes and more than 150 underglazes*
- More than 150 molds and forms*
- Seven dipping glazes, for people who’d rather not brush — certification required*
- 29 pottery wheels, and instructors who will teach you to use them
- Slab rollers, extruders* and a pile of other equipment
- Your own private pottery shelf*
- Game tables, dozens of games, lounge areas, big leather sofas, drink fridges
- Optional workshops, and first dibs on the non-pottery art workshops
- Game nights, parties, and a community where you find your people
Clay and firings are the two things not included — here’s why and what they cost. Raku workshops are their own thing too: they run separately from membership and are paid for separately.
*How much of this you can reach depends on your level. Tools, glazes, molds, extruders, dipping glazes and shelf size all step up as you go from Green to Black. Here’s exactly how that works, and the comparison above lays it out level by level.
What’s an “open studio class”, and how is it different from “open studio time”?
We don’t run structured classes where everyone makes the same mug. We run open studio classes: you come and work on whatever you like, and four instructors are on the floor to teach you whatever kind of pottery is calling to you. Your journey, your choice.
Open studio time is different. Friday evenings and Saturday and Sunday mornings, the studio is open but there are no instructors working. Some may be there making their own things — they’re off the clock, same as you.
Two things to know about open studio
It counts as one of your classes for the month, the same as any other session.
And everyone there pitches in on cleanup before they leave — ask the onsite manager for the checklist. It’s a 5 to 10 minute job. We all get the studio dirty together, so we all put it back together, and with no instructors on shift it genuinely relies on everyone doing their bit.
Your very first class can’t be an open studio session, and there’s a short wait before you can use open studio at all. If you’re new to pottery, come to two instructed classes first. If you already knew your way around clay when you joined, one is enough. That way you know the layout, the rules and the cleanup routine before turning up at a session with no instructors on hand to ask.
Why isn’t there a set curriculum or a scheduled course?
Because we think four instructors in the room beats one instructor at the front of it, and we’d rather build the studio around that.
A scheduled curriculum sounds reassuring until you look at how pottery actually works:
- A single piece takes weeks. Make it one week, dry it for two or three, bisque fire it, glaze it, fire it again. A tidy week-by-week syllabus doesn’t survive contact with that.
- Everyone joins at a different moment. People start on all sorts of days, all through the month. In a scheduled course, half the room is always either lost or bored.
- Four instructors means you get taught, not lectured. One teacher in front of forty people has to aim at the middle. Four instructors circulating means someone is teaching you, at your pace, on the thing in your hands right now.
- You make what you actually want to make. Not this week’s assigned project. If you want to spend two months on one ridiculous sculpture, that’s a completely valid pottery education.
- It works for every level at once. A total beginner and a potter of fifteen years sit at the same table and both get what they came for.
- Missing a week never puts you behind. There’s no behind to be.
- You can switch focus any time. Wheel one week, hand-building the next, molds the week after, then a whole evening of glazing.
- It’s how the community forms. People help each other constantly here, which simply doesn’t happen in a room where everyone faces front.
And the part we didn’t expect when we designed it this way: there are infinite ways to take a pottery journey, and because everyone here is at a different skill level working on something different, the room runs on constant inspiration instead of constant comparison. That turns out to matter enormously.
No curriculum. No grades. No falling behind. Just a big studio, four people who know what they’re doing, and whatever you feel like making.
What time are classes?
With instructors:
- Monday to Thursday evenings, starting 6:30 PM
- Monday mornings, 10:30 AM – 2:00 PM
Open studio (no instructors):
- Friday, 6:30 – 10:00 PM
- Saturday, 10:00 AM – 1:30 PM
- Sunday, 10:00 AM – 1:30 PM
We hope you’re on time, but after your first class, come when you can and leave early if you need to. More class times get added as we grow.
Do you do date nights, one-off classes or drop-ins?
No — and it’s on purpose. Monthly membership is the only way in.
Two reasons. One: a single piece of pottery takes weeks to get from wet clay to finished object. An hour-long session can’t show you that, so it teaches you almost nothing. Two: we’re here to build friendships, and those don’t happen in one evening either.
If you want to try before committing, membership is month to month with no contract — that is the try-it option. And you’re welcome to come to lots of different nights to find the group you vibe with.
Private and corporate events are the one exception, because they’re a different thing entirely — details here.
What’s the minimum age?
18, or 14 if the teenager attends alongside a parent or guardian who is also a member.
Worth knowing before you enroll a teenager: some members bring alcohol and snacks to the evening classes, and the language isn’t especially filtered. If you don’t mind your teenager in that with you, come and learn pottery together.
The Monday daytime class is more reserved and alcohol is prohibited.
I’m visiting from out of town. Can I drop by and see the studio?
Unfortunately not. The social media following made the number of visitors genuinely unmanageable, so it’s members only and no studio tours. Thank you for understanding.
The virtual tour is the next best thing, and it’s thorough.
People, rules and whether you’ll fit
The questions people are slightly nervous to ask. Asked and answered honestly.
I have social anxiety. Will I be comfortable here?
An enormous number of our members felt exactly that before their first class. What almost all of them report is that day one was a bit nerve-wracking — like the first day at a new school — and then within no time they found their groove and their spot.
You can sit and work quietly on your own, or sit surrounded by people and gab all night. Nobody will make you do either.
It takes a leap of faith to join something like this when you’re anxious. We know. Most of us are too, which is exactly what makes this group what it is. People come as they are, and nobody thinks twice if it takes you a few weeks to warm up.
I have a neuro-spicy brain. Is this a good place for me?
Yes, very much so.
Part of why we love pottery is how many neurodivergent people it attracts. Dan has ADHD, as do most of our instructors and a great many of our members.
This studio was designed not just as a place to bring everyone together but as a place you can easily escape when you need to. There are soft couches and chairs all over the building for exactly that.
That said — neuro-spicy is never an excuse to break the studio rules or treat people badly. We hold everyone to the same standard here.
Do people talk about religion or politics here?
No, and that’s deliberate. This is a pottery studio, not a debate club.
Whatever you believe, practice, or vote for, you are welcome here exactly as you are. So is the person sitting next to you, who may well believe something entirely different. Both of those things are true at the same time, and neither of you needs to hide anything to make it work.
The rule is just: keep it neutral. Beliefs, religion and politics are the fastest way to turn a room full of strangers into a room full of sides, so we leave them at the door. Nobody is asking you to be someone else — only to let everyone else be who they are too.
What that buys you is the part that’s genuinely hard to find anywhere else: a table where people from completely different lives sit down together, make pots, and become real friends without ever having to agree on a single thing.
Everyone is welcome here. LGBTQ+ friendly, always, in every class. Celebrate human differences is one of our commandments, and we mean it.
What’s the atmosphere actually like in class?
Mixed, and that’s rather the point. On a typical evening 30 to 50 people are spread across nearly 10,000 square feet, so the studio is comfortably several things at once.
Some tables are chatty and irreverent. There’s joking, there’s laughing, people bring snacks and drinks to share, and the language isn’t especially filtered. Other tables are heads-down and quiet, with people working through a piece and barely looking up all night. Both are completely normal, and neither one is the real Clay Hole.
You choose where you sit and who you sit near, and you can choose differently next week. There are couches, lounge areas and quiet corners for when you want to step out of the middle of it for a while.
What most people find is that they find their people — a handful of members whose company they enjoy, on the nights that suit them. After that it stops being a room you attend and starts being a place you go.
If you’d rather quiet was the default, the Monday daytime class is the calm one: no alcohol, no cursing, same instructors, same everything else. Dan’s mom is in that one, and we all have to show her some respect.
The building is big enough for everyone to be comfortable in their own skin. That isn’t a slogan — it’s just what the square footage buys you.
I’ve been coming a while and I’m not making friends. Any suggestions?
Making friends takes time, and more than that it takes effort. If you wait for friends to come to you, it can be a very long wait.
Compliment the work of the people around you. Ask specific questions about how they made something. Ask where they’re from, whether they have kids or pets. Think ice breakers — look some up if you need to.
What you’ll find is that most of the people near you are just as nervous about it as you are. Find the few seconds of insane courage to start the conversation and it gets easier every single week.
And come and talk to our team. We’re good at getting conversations started between members, and if we know you’d like a nudge we’re glad to be part of that.
Do you really kick people out?
Yep. It doesn’t happen often, but we don’t shy away from it when it needs to happen.
If you’re toxic, you’re gone. If you’re over-dramatic, you’re gone. If you sexually harass people, you’re gone. If you don’t help keep the studio clean, you guessed it. We have no qualms about asking someone to leave if they hurt the experience for our instructors or their classmates.
These classes can be a tad bit irreverent, and they’re also safe and fun for everyone. Both things at once.
We reserve the right to cancel any membership if the studio rules aren’t kept, or if someone’s behavior becomes in any way disruptive or dysregulating to other members or our staff. If a membership is canceled for conduct there’s no refund, and everything on that shelf is forfeit.
You’ll get these on your first day and they’re posted in the studio, but here they are early. None of them should come as a shock.
The Unbreakable Clay Hole Commandments
- Thou shalt always clean thine own mess
- Thou shalt always clean another messy part of the studio
- Thou shalt follow every single glaze rule
- Thou shalt pay for all clay and firings
- Thou shalt not bring constant negativity or drama to the studio
- Thou shalt not touch the pottery of thine classmates without permission
- Thou shalt not touch thine classmates without consent
- Thou shalt not sexually harass others
- Thou shalt not gossip endlessly
- Thou shalt celebrate human differences
Basically, don’t be an A-hole at The Clay Hole.
Can I bring my service animal?
Service dogs are welcome. That means a dog individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. You don’t need to bring paperwork, and nobody here will ask you about your disability.
What we ask is the same for everyone:
- Your dog stays with you — either on your lap, or lying quietly on the floor under the table beside you. Not roaming the aisles, not visiting other tables.
- Your dog stays under your control and out of the walkways. People carry heavy, fragile work across this floor and can’t always see what’s below them.
- Your dog is housebroken, and any accident gets cleaned up thoroughly, outside.
Please read this part before you decide
Broken pottery and dried glaze leave genuinely sharp shards, and in a working studio they find their way onto the floor no matter how carefully we sweep. No amount of sweeping makes this floor safe for an animal, and we are not responsible for injury to your dog.
We’re not saying that to be difficult. We’d honestly rather you left your dog at home, and the paragraphs below are us being straight with you about why.
Two areas are off limits to dogs, always.
- The wheel area. There isn’t room, and a dog that bumps or stands on a pedal can spin a wheel up with nobody expecting it. That sends tools, stools and somebody’s piece flying. People get hurt and work gets destroyed.
- The warehouse and shelving area, where everyone’s work is stored. No exceptions to this one at all.
A service dog is here to work, not to socialize. They aren’t here to greet other members or to interrupt what the room is doing. If a dog becomes a distraction, or isn’t kept controlled and in place, we’ll ask that it stops coming — for the safety of the people here and of everyone’s pottery. That isn’t a judgement about your dog. A studio full of moving people and fragile work is simply not a forgiving room for one.
You carry the full cost of anything your dog causes
If something happens as a direct result of your dog being here, it’s financially yours. That includes broken pottery — often weeks of somebody’s work — along with clay, tools, equipment and the building, reimbursing another member’s monthly membership when their work is lost, and injury to another member, including someone tripping over a dog or turning an ankle stepping around one.
If you’ve read all that and your dog still needs to be with you, come and talk to us before your first class and we’ll sort out the safest spot for the two of you.
Emotional support animals, therapy animals and pets are a different thing. They aren’t service animals, and they can’t come to class. We know that lands hard for some people, and it isn’t about the animals — it’s a working floor with kilns, sharp tools and glaze on it.
About Mud. There is exactly one dog with the run of this place: Mud, Dan’s miniature Australian Labradoodle. He is the best argument we have for everything above. He is exceptionally well trained, he stays out of the walkways, and he knows every off-limits area in the building without ever having argued about a single line on the map.
He has still been cut by shards more than once. A dog who lives here, knows every inch of the room and has never put a paw somewhere he shouldn’t still gets hurt on this floor sometimes. If it can happen to him it can happen to yours, and yours doesn’t know the room. More about Mud.
Is there a studio dog?
There is. Mud, thirty-five pounds of miniature Australian Labradoodle, who belongs to Dan and who is comfortably the most popular individual in the building on the days he comes to work. Members have walked straight past Dan without breaking stride to get to him. Dan has made his peace with this.
He is here a lot, though not every day, and which days he comes is genuinely his call. Some mornings he is ready before Dan is. Some mornings he would rather have the couch, and honestly, fair enough.
Say hello. He would like you to. There is one thing to check first, and it is your hands. Clean hands, get down there and tell him he is a good boy. Covered in clay or glaze, admire him from a respectful distance and come back after you have washed up.
- Belly rubs — yes, endlessly, and he has never once decided he has had enough
- Ear scratches — he will allow it because he is a gentleman, and neither of you will enjoy it. Aim lower
- Treats — he has no dignity whatsoever on this subject and would sell Dan to a stranger for one
One ask on his behalf
He has a corner. If he has taken himself over to it, he is off the clock — a loud studio peoples him out the same way it does the rest of us. Let him have it and he will come back out. He always comes back out.
He was trained by Shanel, one of our own members, who trains dogs for a living. She did it right here in the studio with the wheels going and carts moving and people carrying work they care about, so he never had to learn good behavior in a quiet living room and then get dropped into all of this.
He is also uncannily good at finding the person who needed him. Nobody announces a hard day, and he does not need them to.
Mud is not a service animal on duty for anyone, and he is the only dog who gets to be here. Here’s why that is, and what the policy is for service dogs.
Mud has his own page now — the one page on this website that isn’t trying to sell you anything.
Is Dan actually in the studio?
Yes, and often. Dan joins every single class here and there — sometimes for the whole thing, sometimes for a pop-in.
Most of his working hours go on running the business: staff, payroll, inventory, keeping the place running, retreats, setting up workshops. He also spends a lot of time on his own ceramic work, which he sells to his online following, so there’s a good chance he’s in his corner of the studio throwing while class is happening.
Say hello when you see him. That’s the entire point of him being there.
Joining, and your first day
When you can start, what to sort out beforehand, and what your first class actually looks like.
If I join today, when can I start?
If you signed up today, here’s exactly which day your first class can be.
One moment.
Either way: we text you after checkout, and you need to reply and tell us which day you’re coming before you turn up.
How soon can I start, and which day should my first class be?
You can start this month or wait for next month — mostly your call.
Joining on the 25th or later? You start the following month
The 25th is when memberships renew, so a sign-up from the 25th onward is really the start of next month. Your membership begins on the 1st and your first class can be any class day in that month.
Before the 25th, joining late in the month costs you nothing in the long run. We don’t prorate, so a late start does mean paying a full month, but your classes never expire while you’re a member. Anything you don’t use this month is sitting there waiting for you next month, or the one after. Nothing you paid for disappears, so join whenever you’re ready rather than waiting for a date on the calendar.
If you sign up between the 1st and the 15th: start any regular class day you like, as long as you’ve replied to our text to tell us when you’re coming. One exception — if you sign up less than three hours before class starts, you come the next day instead. We need that time to send you everything and set your account up.
If you sign up between the 16th and the 24th: your first class has to be a Monday or a Thursday. Those are our new member days — we do the tour, assign your shelf and get you set up in one go, rather than pulling an instructor out of class to run a tour for one person on a random night. Turn up on another day and we’ll have to send you back on the right one, which nobody enjoys.
If you sign up on the 25th or later: you’re starting the following month, so you’re back to any class day you like.
After that first class, come to whichever classes you like.
Open studio comes later. You can’t start there, and you can’t use it straight away either: two instructed classes first if you’re new to pottery, one if you already knew what you were doing before you joined. Why that is.
Is my first month a calendar month, or a month from when I start?
Calendar month, always. It doesn’t matter when you start — your first month ends when that calendar month ends.
Start on the 10th of September and your first month still ends September 30th, renewing for October on the 25th of September. Start on the 24th and the same thing happens, much faster.
So if you want a full month for your money, start at the beginning of the next one. If you’d rather get in the door now, start now — the classes you don’t use aren’t lost, they just wait for you.
The 23rd and 24th are the one case worth thinking about. Signing up then means paying for the last days of this month, and then renewing on the 25th for the next one. That’s completely fine if you actually want to come in those final days — and your unused classes still carry forward. If you don’t, waiting until the 25th means your payment goes straight to the new month instead.
What actually happens on my first day?
There is a short list to sort out beforehand — it takes about twenty minutes — and then nobody is going to put you on the spot once you’re here. Here’s the whole thing, start to finish.
Before you come:
- Sign the waiver. You can’t come to class without it.
- Text us on 385-241-5528 and tell us which day you’re coming.
- Watch the day one orientation video. It gets you into clay up to an hour faster, and there’s a password hidden in it you’ll be asked for.
- Green Level Members bring their own basic tools and a sponge. Every level above that has tools waiting for you.
- An apron if you want one. Optional, and not included at any level.
- If you want to throw, watch the wheel video first. If you want to use molds or the slab rollers, watch that one. Both are required before you touch the equipment — including for experienced potters, since they cover how we do things here rather than how to make pottery.
On the day itself: arrive on time, but no more than 15 minutes early. We hand out the things you’ll need, including your first-day booklet, and introduce you to the class. Then a quick studio tour, the studio commandments, and a run through the different ways of making pottery here so you know what’s open to you.
After that you get your own pottery shelf assigned, you buy your first bag of clay, and you’re set loose on whichever side of the studio you fancy. There is plenty of time to actually make something on day one — that’s the point of getting the admin done quickly.
Three things worth knowing before you walk in
Look for the shirts. Our main instructors wear bright pink tees that say The Clay Hole. Our trade instructors wear purple. Grab either one for any pottery question at all — that’s what they’re there for. For the bigger questions about studio policies, membership levels or billing, ask a main instructor: they’re trained far more deeply on all of that. There’s usually one on the wheel side and one on the hand-building side, and they’re shared across the whole class.
Clay comes from us, in 25 lb bags. A mug takes about a pound. Outside clay can destroy a kiln and is forbidden, so don’t bring any.
Everyone cleans up. Your own space, plus one other part of the studio that needs attention. We all make the mess together, so we all deal with it together. You’ll need to be cleaned up and out by the time class ends, and we ring a bell 30 minutes before so you can pace yourself.
First-time wheel lessons only go to members who arrive on time — an instructor can’t start one mid-class. So if the wheel is why you joined, be there at the start.
You also can’t bring a guest to your own very first class. Too much of it is tour and setup for them to get anything out of it.
Two more things that settle nerves: the full new member checklist, and the first-day booklet, which you’re welcome to read now rather than waiting.
I’m a total beginner. Is that a problem?
The opposite. Most of our members walked in having never touched clay.
Four instructors work every class, and the slab molds mean you can make something genuinely beautiful on day one without knowing anything. Beginners aren’t just welcome here, they’re the majority.
Do I have to sign anything?
Two agreements to start, both digital, and they come at different times. A third one comes later only if you decide you want to use the dipping glazes.
1. The member waiver and membership agreement — before your first class. This is the only one you need sorted before you arrive. Every member signs it. Refusing to sign means membership is terminated without refund. Sign it here.
2. The glaze checklist and agreement — later, before you glaze anything. No rush on this one; it comes up when you reach the glazing stage. Every line initialed, then signed. That’s not us being precious — there is close to $100,000 of commercial glaze in this building and the rules are what keep it usable. Sign it here.
3. The dipping glaze agreement — only if you want to dip. The dipping buckets have their own training and their own agreement, and neither is required unless you plan to use them. How the dipping certification works.
Some workshops carry their own release as well — raku is the main one, since it involves fire and a kiln at nearly 2,000 degrees.
Is there a discount on my first month?
Usually, yes… as long as you claim one before they run out! We are so confident about the long game that there’s almost always a deal running for first-time members. We want you to try it out without too much risk, because we know that — just like the majority of our new members — you’re probably gonna wanna keep coming back for a long time to come.
—Only a limited number of new member deals go out each month
There is a hard cap of 30 new member deals per month. Once they’re gone they’re gone until the 1st, so it’s worth not sitting on it.
View the current new member offers
The count above refreshes on a delay, so it can run a day or two behind actual sign-ups.
One condition, and it’s a fair one
We generally lose money on first-month promos. They exist so you can give this an honest try. So a membership canceled before you’ve attended a single class gets automatically reactivated — cancel again once you’ve been to at least one class and it sticks. It keeps the discount available for people genuinely considering us.
Is one month enough to get a finished piece?
Sometimes. Honestly, probably not.
Some pieces can sit uncovered on your shelf and be dry in 48 hours. Others take a month or more to dry slowly enough not to crack. Then every piece goes through two kiln firings, and kilns get fired when there’s enough work to fill one — sometimes several times a week, sometimes once or twice a month.
There’s also a learning curve, and it’s real. Your first few pieces take longer because you’re learning to judge thickness, drying and timing at the same time as making the thing. The longer you’re a member, the faster your whole process gets — experienced members move work through in a fraction of the time it took them at the start.
Plan on about two months to see finished work you’re proud of come out of the final kiln.
If you’re only planning on one month, say so on day one and an instructor will steer you toward something that can be moved through quickly. The full timeline is here.
One ask, and we hope it lands as fair
Our instructors split their time across everyone in the room, and they teach on the assumption that you’re here to learn pottery properly over time. What we can’t do is have one member absorb most of an instructor’s evening because they’re racing to finish something before the next charge date. That comes straight out of everyone else’s class, so we don’t allow it.
Ask your questions, take your share, and enjoy it. If you want to go deeper faster, the internet is full of genuinely excellent free pottery teaching — YouTube, Instagram, and the pottery groups on Facebook are all worth your time between classes.
We’re a couple. Is there an option for us to help this be more affordable?
There are two, because we know hobbies get tricky when you both want to share one and expenses stack up fast.
Couples options for membership
And if you’d both rather just have your own standard memberships, that works perfectly well too.
Which membership, and what it costs
Four levels. Each one gives you access to your color membership plus every color below it, and none of the colors above it.
Compare the four levels
Tap a column to highlight it.
| Green | Yellow | Purple | Black | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $145Starter | $170Enhanced | $200Premium | $275Elite |
| Classes a month | 4 | 5 | 6 | 8, including two bonus days |
| Per 3.5 hour session | $36.25 | $34.00 | $33.33 | $34.38 |
| Your shelf | 24 × 12 × 8″ | 24 × 12 × 12″ | 36 × 16 × 14″ | 48 × 16 × 16″ |
| Glazes | Our basic glazes | Plus dozens of premium glazes | Plus hundreds more exclusive glazes and underglazes | Plus the highest end glazes we offer members |
| Pottery tools | Bring your own basic set | Hundreds of studio tools | Plus thousands more, high-end | Plus the most exclusive we own |
| Dipping glazes | Upcharge per piece | Upcharge per piece | Six of seven included | All seven included |
| Extruders | — | — | Handheld extruders | Handheld plus the wall extruder |
| Clay discount (per bag) | — | $2 | $4 | $6 |
| Events and workshops | — | — | Discounted | Discounted further |
| Ready? | Join as a Green Level Member | Join as a Yellow Level Member | Join as a Purple Level Member | Join as a Black Level Member |
Equipment and tools are different things here. Equipment — all 29 wheels, the worktables, the slab rollers and the kilns — is open to every level, whatever color you’re on. Tools are the things you shape your pottery with, and those are marked by level: Green Level Members bring their own basic set and a sponge, and every level above that has tools waiting. Molds sit in between — there are Green Level molds through to the giant and complex Black Level ones, and almost all of them are open by Purple Level. Black Level is limited, so check availability before signing up.
Once I’m in there, how do I know what I’m allowed to use?
By color. Every tool, glaze, mold and piece of equipment in the building carries a color mark, and the rule is one sentence long:
You get access to your color membership, plus every color below it. Never a color above it.
So a Purple Level Member uses purple, yellow and green. A Yellow Level Member uses yellow and green. Nobody has to ask permission, look anything up, or check with an instructor — if the mark is your color or lower, it’s yours to use.
- Green Level — our basic glazes and the smaller molds. Green Level Members bring their own basic tools and a sponge, since tools are the one thing Green doesn’t include.
- Yellow Level — adds hundreds more tools, dozens of premium glazes, and more molds.
- Purple Level — adds thousands of high-end tools, hundreds more exclusive glazes and underglazes, the handheld extruders, six of the seven dipping glazes at no upcharge, and almost every mold we own.
- Black Level — adds the most exclusive tools in the building, the highest end glazes we make available to members, the seventh dipping glaze, the giant and complex molds, and the wall extruder.
Orange and red mean off limits to members entirely. Those are staff and studio-only items, and they’re marked that way so nobody has to guess.
Equipment is the exception. The wheels, the worktables, the slab rollers and the kilns are open to every level. Color marking covers the tools, glazes and molds you make your pottery with, not the machines you make it on.
Membership levels explained on video, if you’d rather be walked through it.
Can I change levels after I sign up?
Upgrade whenever you like, including mid-month or before you’ve started classes. Downgrade starting the following month.
Upgrade your membership mid-month here — you pay for the upgrade online and we handle the rest.
For what it’s worth: across the three years Dan ran the smaller version of this studio, not one student ever downgraded. Not one stayed at green for more than a month. And 90% moved up to Purple Level within their first year. That’s how much difference the higher levels make once you’re actually in the room.
Is there an unlimited option?
Not at a set price, but we’re happy to build you a custom one based on how much access you want and how much glaze you’ll be getting through. Text 385-241-5528 and we’ll work it out.
Do you have punch passes?
Not currently. Punch passes are discontinued and we don’t have a date for bringing them back. Monthly membership is the only way to join right now.
Not to be confused with your rewards punch card, which every member gets and which is a completely different thing.
What does it mean that my classes never expire?
It means you can travel without losing anything. It means a couple of hectic weeks don’t cost you money. It means catching a cold isn’t a financial event.
Each level comes with a number of classes a month. Miss them and you can use them next week or next year — there’s no limit on how many you stack up, and no expiry, for as long as you stay a member.
The catch, stated plainly: if you cancel, every unused class is void. Even if you sign back up later. This is the single most common thing people are surprised by, so we’d rather you read it here than find out later.
Can I use all my classes in the same week?
They’re your classes. Come when you like, clumped or spread out.
What if I come to more classes than my level allows?
Talk to staff the moment you realize. If you’re staying on next month, we’ll usually just take the extra off next month’s allowance and call it even.
If it isn’t caught: you’re charged the difference for the current month and moved up to a level that includes those days from the following month. You can drop back down later, but we don’t refund overuse charges.
How do you track how many times I’ve come this month?
Mostly, we don’t. This one runs on trust.
There’s no card to scan and nobody standing at the door with a clipboard. We’d rather not run the studio that way, and honestly, most people don’t need us to — they keep a rough count themselves and it works out fine.
The same goes for the color system. Nobody is auditing which tools you picked up or which glaze you used. If it’s your level or below, it’s yours; if it’s above, we trust you to leave it be.
Where it does come up: if it looks like someone is coming a good deal more often than they’re paying for, we’ll have a friendly word and check the attendance. That conversation is rare and it’s not a big deal when it happens — usually it’s an honest miscount and we sort it in a minute.
So: keep your own tally, stick to your level, and enjoy the fact that nobody here is policing you. If you do go over, here’s what happens.
Can I transfer my membership to someone else, or buy one as a gift?
Memberships are non-transferable. Every member signs up under their own name, email and phone number, and we can’t make exceptions to this one.
For a gift, buy a gift certificate rather than signing someone up under your details.
What it actually costs
Membership isn’t the whole bill. Clay and firings are extra and we don’t want you to be surprised, so here are both with the math done for you.
Your real monthly total
Membership, plus clay, plus firings. It starts on what a typical new member spends — move the sliders to match yourself.
a month, all in
Starting numbers are what a typical new member actually spends: half a bag of clay and two fired pieces a month. An average piece fires at around $7; a really large one can run past $50. Bisque firings are free, so only glaze firings are counted here. Clay is priced from our cheapest all-purpose bag — premium and specialty clays cost more. Not sure what a piece will cost? Use the estimator below and put the real number in.
What will this firing cost?
Glaze firings are charged at $0.05 per cubic inch, minimum $4.80. Measure the box your piece fits inside.
Bisque firing is free — you only ever pay for the glaze firing. Several tiny pieces can go through together as long as they fit on a 6 × 6″ kiln cookie.
Are clay and firings included in my membership?
No. Neither is included in any level, and we’d rather say that loudly here than have it be a surprise in the studio.
Clay starts at $28 for a 25 lb bag of our all-purpose clay, before your membership discount, and must be bought through us. Yellow Level takes $2 off, Purple Level $4, Black Level $6. Premium and specialty clays cost more.
Glaze firings are $0.05 per cubic inch with a $4.80 minimum. Bisque firings are free.
For most members this adds something like $30 to $80 a month on top of membership. The calculator above will give you a closer number than we can in a paragraph.
Why is it this expensive?
Believe it or not, it isn’t! At least for what you’re getting — but we understand why the number lands hard, so here’s the honest version.
You’re getting access to a studio with more than a million dollars invested in it: 650+ glazes, 150+ underglazes, thousands of tools, more than 150 molds, slab rollers, 29 wheels, four kilns including a 42 cubic foot bell lift. Four instructors in every class. A prime location right off the freeway.
That works out at roughly $33 to $36 for a 3.5 hour instructed session. Pottery is an expensive hobby anywhere; we’re priced comparably to other good studios and carry far more than any of them.
What we won’t do is pretend it’s cheap or compete on price. There isn’t another studio like this one, and the number is the number.
How does the rewards card work?
Every member gets a rewards card that gets punched each month you stay. It’s our way of rewarding people who make this a long-term part of their life, and it stacks up fast.
- 2 months — a free firing, 8″ max
- 3 months — two free firings, 8″ max
- 4 months — a free bag of 52 Buff
- 5 months — a free firing, 10″ max
- 6 months — a free Bring a Friend pass
- 7 months — a free firing, 10″ max
- 8 months — two free firings, 12″ max
- 9 months — a free Clay Hole t-shirt
- 10 months — a free firing, 12″ max
- 11 months — a free firing, 12″ max
- 12 months — a free month at your current level
- 18 months — free firings for life, 12″ max, two a month
- 2 years — upgraded free firings, 16″ max, three a month
- 3 years — free clay for life, one bag of 52 Buff per month
You can use a reward the moment the month you’ve paid for begins. There’s no waiting until the month is over, and no minimum number of classes first. Hit six months and your Bring a Friend pass is yours from day one of that month.
The main rule
If your membership is canceled at any time, for any reason, your rewards start over. You’re always welcome back and we’ll get you a new card — but the clock restarts. This is exactly why pausing beats canceling: months on pause don’t count against you and your progress is kept.
The other rules:
- Hole punches: don’t cash a reward in until your card has actually been punched
- No particular order, and no expiry. You don’t have to use rewards in the order you earn them, and they never expire while you’re a member. Anything you haven’t cashed in is still yours
- Your clock doesn’t care what level you’re on. Upgrade or downgrade as often as you like; it changes nothing about your rewards progress
- Which months count: every paid month, including a discounted first month and any month on the Heroes Discount. Month 13, your free month, counts too — it still moves you toward the 18-month reward
- Free firings are glaze firings. Bisque firings are already free for everyone
- On free firings, the max inches applies to the piece’s longest side
- On kiln tickets for free firings, write “Reward Freebie” on the payment line
- The 4-month clay is a bag of 52 Buff. Same at every level, with no upgrading to a different clay and no paying a difference
- Free t-shirt: any size or style we currently carry, and you can put the value of a shirt toward a sweatshirt or hoodie instead
- Free Bring a Friend pass: no extra rules
- Free month: after 12 paid months your 13th is free. It pays out at whatever level you’re on when you cash it, not the level you were on when you earned it
- Tell us before the 24th so your free month isn’t charged. If you forget and the charge goes through, the free month simply slides to the following month
- Lifetime rewards: mind the max quantity and dimensions. They never run out while you’re a member. Only take a new bag of clay once the old one is used up
- Lifetime rewards don’t roll over. From 18 months on, your monthly free firings and free clay reset at the start of each month. Unused ones don’t stack up for later
- At two years, the 16″ firings replace the 12″ ones. Three at 16″ a month instead of two at 12″. They don’t stack
- The 3-year clay is the one exception on upgrades. It’s a bag of 52 Buff every month, and at three years you may put that value toward a nicer clay and pay the difference. The 4-month bag can’t be upgraded that way
- Rewards can’t be shared, gifted or transferred to another member. They’re tied to you and your card
- Shared memberships: on a Shared Membership there’s one card between the two of you. A Shared Shelf Pass is two separate memberships, so two separate cards and nothing unusual about it
- Lost your card? We can issue a new one, but we don’t track punches on our end, so we have to punch it back up to where you are. Anything you’d been saving is gone with the old card — so please find the old one
We reserve the right to tweak or cancel the program if it ever becomes financially unfeasible or unmaintainable.
What if I fall on hard times and can’t pay for a month or two?
We get it. Sometimes life knocks us all flat.
Sometimes we can trade a month of membership for work — helping clean or organize the studio, glazing one of Dan’s personal collections, that sort of thing. It depends entirely on whether we have work going at the time, so we can’t promise it in advance.
There’s only ever a small amount of it available, so please only ask if you’re genuinely in need. Come and talk to us and we’ll tell you honestly what we’ve got.
Renewing, canceling and pausing
There’s no contract, but there is a deadline to cancel. This is the section worth reading before you need it.
You keep everything
- Your shelf, and everything on it
- Your unused classes
- Your rewards progress — paused months don’t count
- Your spot in the studio
- Billing resumes on its own, no re-enrolling
$25 green, $30 yellow, $35 purple, $50 black. Green, yellow and purple can pause up to three months a calendar year; black up to two. Pauses start the next calendar month.
You lose these
- Every unused class, permanently
- Your rewards progress — the card starts over
- Your shelf, which must be cleared by the end of the month
- Your spot, if we’re full when you come back
You’re always welcome back and we’ll get you a new card. But nothing above comes back with you.
Is there a contract? Can I cancel any time?
No contract. Cancel any time. We hate to see people go, but life takes people in all sorts of directions.
What there is instead is a deadline: cancel by 11:59 PM on the 24th and you won’t be charged for the next month. Memberships renew on the 25th.
No contracts. Just deadlines.
How do I cancel?
You do it yourself, in the member portal, by 11:59 PM on the 24th. It takes a few clicks.
Log in to the member portal · Step by step instructions
Telling us doesn’t cancel it
A text doesn’t cancel your membership. An email doesn’t. Telling an instructor doesn’t. We never cancel memberships on your behalf, so please don’t message us asking us to — the message will not stop the charge. You have to do it in the portal yourself.
If you’re only stepping away for a while, pausing is almost always the better move.
I forgot to cancel and I’ve been charged. Can I get a refund?
No. We’re sorry, and we know that’s not what anyone wants to read.
There are no refunds on memberships, for any reason, at any time — including missed cancellation deadlines. That applies to everyone equally, including people who genuinely forgot, genuinely meant to, or were genuinely away.
Here’s why, because “that’s the policy” is a useless answer. The moment the 24th rolls over, a chain of events fires: shelves get assigned and reassigned, classes and lessons get planned around who’s coming, staffing is set, new members are placed and reached out to. Undoing one membership after that means unpicking all of it, for everyone else too.
Two things that genuinely help:
- Pausing costs $25 to $50. Forgetting costs $145 to $275. If there’s any chance you’ll want a break, pause early rather than deciding late.
- Set a reminder for the 23rd. Every month, on your phone, right now. It is the single most useful thing on this page.
And if you have been charged: the month is genuinely yours. Come and use it. Come to every class you’re entitled to, make something you’re proud of, and then cancel before the next 24th.
What if I’m just not enjoying it? Refunds then?
Also no. No refunds, in any circumstance.
What we do have is a lot of other ways to enjoy the place. Not getting on with the wheel? Almost nobody does at first — try hand-building, or make precision pieces on our molds, which is how the majority of our members make their bowls and platters. Join one of the contests. Sit and play games with your class until something sparks.
Your month is yours. You paid for it. Come and use it.
If I cancel, can I still come this month? And when must my shelf be cleared?
Yes — you keep coming for your unused classes through the rest of the current month.
Your shelf has to be completely cleared by the end of the final class of the month, during regular class hours. We clear every shelf on the first of the month to make room for new members.
If it isn’t cleared, everything on it is thrown out or absorbed. Spare clay goes to other members for kiln cookies, exactly as you benefited from other people’s abandoned clay while you were here. Good tools go into the tool bins, cheap ones are thrown out. Aprons become studio property. Projects are thrown away.
Once a shelf has been cleared as abandoned, nothing on it can be recovered. So please get it cleared in time.
Can I pause instead of canceling?
Yes, and we recommend it. It’s the option most members take.
You keep your shelf and everything on it, your unused classes, your rewards progress (paused months don’t count against you), and your spot in the studio. Billing resumes automatically — you don’t re-enrol.
The fee is paid in advance and depends on your level: $25 green, $30 yellow, $35 purple, $50 black, per month. Green, yellow and purple can pause up to three months per calendar year; black level up to two.
Pauses always start the next calendar month, and you can still come and finish out the month you pause in.
How do I update my card or payment method?
Log in to the member portal. It’s fairly self-explanatory from there — and if it isn’t, grab one of our main instructors in class (the bright pink shirts) and they’ll walk you through it.
Clay, glazes, kilns and the rest of it
The practical questions, starting with the one that surprises everybody.
Why a finished piece takes about two months
Almost nobody expects pottery to take this long. Tap any stage to see where the time goes.
Two months is the honest average for a first piece. You’ll move work through faster as you get better at judging drying and stacking up several pieces at once.
How long until I actually take something home?
If you’re a beginner potter, plan on about two months for your first finished piece — one you’re actually proud of. The timeline above breaks down where that time goes.
The short version: drying can’t be rushed without cracking, and every piece needs two separate kiln firings. Kilns are fired when there’s enough work to fill one, which can be several times a week or once or twice a month depending on how busy the studio is.
This is exactly why we don’t do one-off classes. An evening gets you a wet lump of clay; a month or two gets you a finished object you actually love.
What can I actually learn and work on?
Three main paths, and you can switch between them whenever you feel like it.
- Hand-building and sculpting — anything you can imagine, with thousands of tools to do it with
- Wheel throwing — the hard one, and the most rewarding once it clicks
- Molds — more than 150 of them, letting you make pristine bowls, platters, casserole dishes, bread pans and charcuterie boards on day one without touching a wheel. This is how most of our members make their best-looking work
If you want to see what that actually looks like in real hands, our member Show & Tell gallery is full of work made by people who walked in knowing nothing.
Hand-build one week, throw the next, slab-build the next, glaze the week after. Nobody is going to tell you to stick to one side of the studio.
Can I bring my own clay or glaze?
Absolutely no outside clay. Zero tolerance, no exceptions.
Glaze is different: you can buy and use any glaze we offer that’s outside your membership level. Any glaze we don’t carry has to be approved case by case.
This isn’t gatekeeping. The wrong clay or glaze can destroy a kiln, the kiln shelves, and every other member’s work sitting in that kiln — which runs into tens of thousands of dollars you’d be responsible for. It also gives your own pieces crazing, crawling and pinholes. Any member who brings in outside clay is financially liable for the damage. So please don’t.
Tell me about the glazes and how the system works.
More than 650 commercial glazes and more than 150 underglazes, from Amaco, Mayco, Coyote, Spectrum, Laguna, Georgies and Speedball. Each level up unlocks more of them.
Most are brush-on by design, so your results come out clean rather than cross-contaminated with whatever the last person dipped. Most have been fired onto test tiles so you can see roughly what you’re going to get on a real pot.
Roughly, because glazes are glazes. The kiln has a mind of its own sometimes, and occasionally you just go for it and hope the kiln gods are in a good mood.
The searchable glaze list, which shows every glaze we carry, what your level reaches and which ones carry an upcharge · The Glaze Bible · Glazing rules and techniques
Do you have dipping glazes?
Seven of them, and they are not cheap homemade buckets. Every one is a high-end commercial glaze specially altered for our members, so a dipped piece still comes out looking professional. They live in their own area of the studio, nowhere near the bottles.
The seven: Blue Hole, Bronzealot, Clear as Mud, Creamed Ice, Sunny Charcoal, Tamjoda and Dan’s Secret Sauce. Dan’s Secret Sauce is the wild one — it comes out different with every firing and every form, so it is always a bit of an adventure.
Dip times are not the same for every bucket. They run from one second to four, and the time is printed on each lid. Read the lid rather than counting to three out of habit.
You need to be certified before your first dip, whatever your level. Here’s how that works.
Who pays what:
- Black Level — all seven included, nothing to pay
- Purple Level — six included. Dan’s Secret Sauce is a Black Level glaze, so it is $6 for a small or medium piece and $11 for a large one
- Yellow Level — $6 small or medium, $11 large. Dan’s Secret Sauce is $11 and $16
- Green Level — $10 small or medium, $15 large. Dan’s Secret Sauce is $15 and $20
Small or medium means 525 cubic inches or less, measured height by width by depth at the widest points. Anything above that is large. Upcharges are per piece, not per session.
The dipping buckets are the one place where Green Level and Yellow Level Members can pay to use something outside their level. We would rather open the buckets up than keep them behind a wall. If you dip more than a few pieces in a month, though, upgrading often works out cheaper than the upcharges — there is a calculator on the upcharge page that does the math on your actual month.
Everything else in the building is brush-on, which is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight.
How do I get certified to use the dipping glazes?
Every member gets signed off before their first dip, whatever their level. It takes about twenty-five minutes and you only ever do it once.
- Watch the training video the whole way through. There is a password in it that you will need.
- Sign the dipping glaze agreement. Digital, like the others.
- Use the password to get signed off, and you are cleared to dip.
Start the dipping glaze training
Why this one has a training course attached
These buckets are shared by the entire studio, and a single careless dip can ruin one. Dust, unfired underglaze, brushed glaze, a dirty tool, wet wax or grit off the floor will contaminate a whole bucket, and some of them cost up to $2,400 to replace.
So there are no strikes on the dipping rules. Break one and you can lose dipping privileges, and anyone who ruins a glaze by breaking a rule is financially responsible for replacing it.
That reads heavy written down, and in practice it is genuinely easy: clean piece, dry wax, rinse, mix well, dip for the time printed on the lid, let it drain fully, touch up, clean up. The training walks you through all of it, and anyone in a pink shirt will happily talk you through your first one.
One rule worth knowing before you even start: if you drop something in a bucket, do not reach in after it. Grab an instructor in a pink shirt and they will get it out for you.
What temperature do you fire at, and why does it matter?
All of our regular studio pottery is high-fire stoneware and porcelain. We fire to cone 5 with a twelve minute hold at peak, which does roughly the same work as a cone 5½. We don’t do low-fire studio pottery at all.
A cone is a measure of heat work rather than just temperature — how hot the kiln got, and for how long. That hold at the top is the part a lot of studios skip. Twelve minutes at peak evens the heat out across the whole kiln and gives glazes time to finish maturing and heal over their own pinholes. It costs more in electricity and in kiln time, and it is a large part of why our clays come out consistently well.
That single choice changes what you take home more than almost anything else we do.
At this temperature, clay vitrifies. The clay body and the glaze effectively become one dense, glassy material, so what you made is genuinely durable: watertight, dishwasher-safe, microwave-safe, oven-friendly, and hard to chip. It’s a real object that lasts decades.
Low-fire pottery doesn’t do that. Fired at much lower temperatures, the clay stays porous underneath its glaze. It looks fine on day one, then it crazes into a web of fine cracks, absorbs water, stains, weeps, and chips at the rim. It’s why so much beginner pottery ends up as a decorative object nobody drinks from.
So why does anyone fire low? Because it’s cheaper and faster. Less electricity, shorter firings, less wear on kilns and shelves, cheaper clay, cheaper glazes, quicker turnaround. For a studio running paint-your-own nights, it’s the obvious business decision.
It costs us more to do it our way, and some of that does show up in what you pay for clay and firings. We think it’s worth it, and so do our members — the whole point of spending weeks on something is that you get to actually use it afterward. A mug you drink from every morning for ten years is a very different thing from a mug you look at.
One practical upside: because everything in the building is fired on the same schedule, every clay and every glaze we carry is compatible with every other one. You can combine freely without checking a chart, which is a bigger creative freedom than it sounds.
How big a piece can I make and fire?
Bigger than you think. We have four kilns: a tester, a Skutt 1027 at 7 cubic feet, a Skutt 1227 at around 10, and an enormous L&L bell lift at 42 cubic feet.
The big one fires up to 22″ wide by 44″ long by about 52″ tall. That’s properly huge pottery — and if you’re willing to pay the firing, we can probably handle it.
I have a kiln at home. Can I fire my pieces there?
Yes, but only if you take them home bone dry and do both firings yourself.
What you can’t do is use our free bisque firing and then take the piece home to skip paying for the glaze firing.
Two reasons, and we’ll be direct about both. The bisque firing isn’t actually free — its cost is built into what we charge for glaze firings, because one charge instead of two keeps the whole system simple for everyone. Taking the bisque and leaving means the studio eats a cost that other members have already covered on your behalf.
The second is that production potters work out this loophole quickly, and start using a community studio’s kilns to cheapen their own output. That is not remotely what this place is for. Doing it is grounds for us to end a membership, so please don’t.
Do you do raku?
We do, and it is easily the most dramatic pottery that happens here.
Raku is the one where your pot comes out of an outdoor kiln glowing red hot at nearly 2,000 degrees and goes straight into a can of combustibles. What the glaze does in there cannot be planned and cannot be got any other way — metallic flashes, crackle, deep coppery reds, iridescence. You open the can and find out what you made.
We carry 54 raku glazes, and they come in two kinds. This trips people up, so it is worth being clear about.
46 are brush-on — the same way you glaze anything else here, painted on with a brush. They come from four ranges:
- Spectrum — 28 of them, and by far the biggest range. Aqua, Cobalt Blue, Cosmic Copper, Metallic Flash, Nebula, Oxblood, Starry Night and plenty more.
- Georgies — 6, including Alligator, Beetle Juice, Copper Ridge and Midnight Luster.
- Mayco — 6, including Black Metallic, Copper Penny, Crackle White and Oil Slick.
- Amaco — 6 more, which Amaco has discontinued. They are still on our shelf and still usable, we just cannot reorder them once they are gone.
The other 8 are dipping glazes, the Laguna raku range, which arrived recently and are ready for the next workshop:
- R2 Tutti Frutti
- R9 BEGS, a white crackle
- R13 Copper
- R15 Dark Red
- R22 Awabi Shell
- R24 Dynasty Blue
- R26 Kingin, gold and silver
- R27 Shinju
Every one of the 54 is marked with a flame on our searchable glaze list, which is always the up-to-date source. Raku glazes are for raku workshops rather than regular class, since they need the raku firing to do anything at all.
Raku workshops are not a membership perk
They are separate paid events that run on their own schedule, and they are open to sign up for rather than included in any level. Everyone taking part signs the raku release beforehand, because this one genuinely involves fire.
Raku also needs a clay body that can survive that kind of thermal shock, which is why B-Mix with Grog is the clay we use for it.
One thing to know before you fall in love with it: raku pieces are decorative, not functional. The process leaves the clay porous and the glaze crazed, so they are not food safe and will not hold water. They are display pieces, and spectacular ones.
Nighttime raku workshop — there are usually only a few spots, so they go quickly.
Do you have slab rollers and extruders?
Large slab rollers, available to every level, so anyone can make precision pieces on our molds.
Handheld extruders are available at Purple Level and Black Level. The wall extruder is Black Level only.
Slab roller and mold techniques video — required watching before you use them.
How many wheels are there, and how busy does a class get?
29 wheels — 24 electric and one kick wheel in the main throwing area, plus four more in the Black Level overflow. Always first come, first served.
A class can hold about 70 people. In practice 30 to 50 turn up. Of those, 20–25% are on the wheels and 75–80% are at the community tables using molds, glazing, hand-building and sculpting.
Because members come when they like, some nights are quiet and some are packed. Come up to 15 minutes early if you want a particular spot. There’s also an overflow classroom you’re welcome to use if the hand-building area is completely full.
How long does it take to learn the wheel?
Two to three months to get reasonably proficient. Years to master. Master potters will tell you they’re still learning it.
Most people assume the wheel will be the easy part. It is the opposite of the easy part — it takes real practice and real dedication.
The good news: if that kind of dedication isn’t what you came for, our molds will get you beautifully shaped bowls, platters and boards on your very first day.
Are there advanced wheel throwing sessions?
Not as scheduled sessions any more. We used to run them, and it turned out people much preferred the open studio format they already had — so we stopped putting them on the calendar.
What replaced it is better, honestly. Dan is in classes often and is glad to help anyone push their skill to the next level — specific forms, fine-tuning technique, or the advanced fundamentals like centering and opening much larger amounts of clay. Our main wheel throwing instructor is also seriously advanced and happy to teach at that level.
No sign-up, no waiting for a date on the calendar. Come to a class, say what you’re trying to crack, and someone will work on it with you.
This looks overwhelming. How does a beginner navigate somewhere this loaded?
Learn one thing at a time. That’s the whole answer.
You don’t need to know what anything is or does. You don’t need to understand our clays or glazes. You need to show up, and our team walks you through the process from beginning to end.
Yes, the studio is fully loaded. It’s also been thought through carefully so that being a potter here is enjoyable rather than baffling. When you get stuck, that’s what four instructors a class are for.
Where do I put my stuff during class?
36 lockers and cubbies, free for anyone to use, first come first served. We don’t allow locks on them.
You can also rent a clay cubby or an apron hook monthly.
How does bringing a friend work?
It’s been one of our most popular programs since we opened. A guest pass costs 25% of your monthly membership fee, capped at $42.50, and it covers one guest for one session.
Two things have to happen: you pay for them, and they sign the studio waiver.
Buy a Bring a Friend pass · Guest waiver
The full rules — including that your guest is your responsibility for the session, that each person can only ever use one guest pass, and that the fee is refunded if they join that same night — are all on the Bring a Friend page.
You can’t bring a guest to your own very first class, since most of it is tour and setup.
Events, the calendar, and working here
Do you do corporate events, private events or parties?
Both, and they run as separate programs.
Corporate and team events. Three hours, hands-on, with instructors. $995 for up to 15 people, $50 per person after that, minimum group of 8. Up to 22 on the wheels, up to 48 hand-building, or both at once. Your fee covers the studio, instructors, 8 lbs of clay per person and every tool needed.
Full pricing and details. To book, text us on 385-241-5528.
Private events and parties. Minimum 15 people, up to 26 if everyone wants a wheel, and considerably more if some hand-build or use molds. Covers instructors, clay, tools and the facility. To book, text 385-241-5528.
Availability moves around with the class schedule and the season, so tell us roughly when you’re thinking and we’ll come back with what’s open.
The honest bit about events
These are about the experience, not the object. Real pottery takes weeks, so nothing goes home finished that night. People can take their wet pieces if they want, though most choose not to. If someone falls in love with it, they can join the studio that evening, put their piece on their own shelf and finish it properly.
Where do I see what’s coming up?
The studio calendar has everything: class times, open studio, demos, advanced sessions with Dan, workshops, seminars and holiday closures.
Announcements go out by email too — subscribe to Important Announcements if you don’t want to miss things like free weeks and parties.
I want to teach at The Clay Hole. How do I apply?
We keep running lists of people we’d like to hire, and we hire straight off them. Instructors move on with very little warning, so the best time to apply is well before there’s an opening.
There are three roles:
- Wheel throwing instructor — paid, pink shirt. We look for real pottery teaching experience in a studio, at least three years of dedication to clay, and someone who genuinely fits how this place feels.
- Hand-building instructor — paid, pink shirt. Same bar, other side of the studio.
- Trade instructor — purple shirt. One shift a week on either side, traded for a Purple Level Membership. It’s a trade rather than a job, so no teaching experience is needed — a year or more in clay, and the same culture fit.
We run two separate lists, evenings and mornings. Our morning classes are growing and a morning instructor is its own hire, so tell us which you’re after.
The paid roles pay well, with bonuses, a free Purple Level Membership, and real room to grow as we keep adding class times. For actual numbers, ask Kyle or take a look at Indeed when we have a listing running.
All three go to Kyle, our general manager. Everything you need, including how to reach him, is on our jobs page.
Then just ask us.
Texting is by far the fastest way to reach us. We answer during class hours.
385-241-5528
Beginners welcome. Monthly membership required. Cancel any time by the 24th. No refunds, ever — including for missed cancellation deadlines. We reserve the right to cancel any membership if the studio rules aren’t kept.
We work hard to keep this page accurate and we update it whenever something changes. Even so, it’s a long page kept up by humans, so an occasional mistake or an answer that’s fallen out of date is possible — nothing here is a contract or a guarantee. We reserve the right to change any policy, price, schedule or answer on this page at any time, without notice. Where anything here differs from our member waiver and membership agreement, or from what our team tells you in the studio, those come first. Spot something that looks wrong? Text us at 385-241-5528 and we’ll get it sorted.
The Clay Hole, 12896 S Pony Express Rd, Suite 100, Draper, UT 84020