Pottery Classes Near Bountiful, Utah
The Clay Hole is a community pottery studio in Draper, about thirty five minutes south of Bountiful. Throwing, hand building, slab molds, glazing and firing, all under a single monthly membership.
Three feet of unfired clay has been holding up a roof on Main Street since 1862. Membership is the only way in here, and there are no drop-in classes.
The drive from Bountiful
South on I-15, essentially the whole way. This is the longest of the northern runs and it takes you past downtown and out the bottom of the valley.
- West to I-15, then south past downtown Salt Lake City.
- The length of the valley to exit 289, Bangerter Highway.
- West on Bangerter, take the 200 W exit, then right on 13490 S.
- Pony Express Rd past IKEA and Living Spaces. We are on the left.
About twenty eight miles, roughly thirty five minutes off peak. Through the middle of a metropolitan area at five it is a good deal longer, and you know that better than we do.
FrontRunner runs Woods Cross to Draper station, which is most of the journey done sitting down. The Draper end still needs a rideshare because of the rail corridor.
When you get here
Free and shared with a few other businesses. Anything not marked reserved is yours. Easier than Main Street on the morning of the Handcart Days parade.
The walls at Main and Center are three feet of unfired clay, and they are still up
The first stone of the Bountiful Tabernacle's foundation was laid in 1857. The Utah War got in the way and it took six years. The building was finished in 1862 and dedicated across two days, 14 and 15 March 1863, because one day was not enough for the largest event in the town's history to that point.
The walls are three feet thick, and they are adobe. Unfired clay brick, dried in this air, sitting on a stone foundation with a timber roof pegged into it.
Augustus Farnham designed it and finished the roof after coming back from a mission to Australia. It has been in continuous use as a place of worship ever since, which makes it a serious candidate for the oldest building in Utah still doing the job it was built for.
Fired or not, it is the same material
Adobe is clay that was never taken to temperature. It works because clay shrinks, hardens and holds a shape when it dries, which is the first thing anybody learns at a wheel and the reason a pot cracks if you rush it. Somebody in 1862 was betting a roof on it.
A big room, and everything in it is included
The studio runs to nearly 10,000 square feet. Membership covers the room, the equipment, the classes and the glaze. You buy clay by the bag and you pay for firing by the size of the piece. Nothing else is metered.
- Four instructors working the room in every instructed class, so nobody sits stuck for twenty minutes.
- 150+ underglazes alongside the glaze wall, plus dipping buckets on the higher levels.
- Bisque firing is free. Glaze firing is 5 cents a cubic inch, $4.80 minimum.
- Clay starts at $28 a 25 pound bag, and the discount grows with your level.
- Your own shelf to leave work on, which is the thing home potters never have.
Utah's second settlement, and the parade still goes past the mud building
Perrigrine Sessions and his family settled here on 27 September 1847, about two months after the first party reached the valley. It was Sessions Settlement, then North Canyon Ward, and Bountiful from 1855.
Handcart Days has run since 1950. The Saturday parade is a mile and eight tenths down Main Street, which the organizers describe as pure entertainment and which happens to run past a building your predecessors made out of dirt.
That is the thing about a place with a real history of making. It is easy to treat it as heritage and hard to treat it as an instruction. Thirty five minutes south there is a room where you do the second thing.
- Four instructed classes a month at the lowest level, eight at the highest.
- Open studio Friday evening and both weekend mornings, on top of the classes.
- Your own shelf, so one longer trip a week is a working rhythm.
- FrontRunner covers most of the distance if you would rather not drive it twice.
Four levels, one monthly price
Every level gets the same studio, the same equipment and the same glaze wall. What changes is how many instructed classes are included, how much shelf you get, and how much comes off a bag of clay.
| Level | Monthly | Classes included |
|---|---|---|
| Green Level | $145 a month | 4 classes a month |
| Yellow Level | $170 a month | 5 classes a month |
| Purple Level | $200 a month | 6 classes a month |
| Black Level | $275 a month | 8 classes a month |
Open studio time is on top of the included classes, at every level. Clay discounts run from nothing on Green Level up to $6 off each bag on Black Level.
The part we would rather you read now than find out later
There are no drop-in classes and no single sessions. Membership renews on the 25th of each month and canceling has to happen before the 24th. Fired work has to be collected within two weeks of the kiln being unloaded. And the cheapest level shows you a real fraction of what a busy month here looks like.
If that list makes membership the wrong shape for you, it is better to know in the first minute than in the fourth week.
When the studio is open
| When | Hours | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Monday daytime | 10:30 AM to 2 PM | Instructed class |
| Monday to Thursday evenings | 6:30 PM to 10 PM | Instructed class |
| Friday evening | 6:30 PM to 10 PM | Open studio |
| Saturday and Sunday mornings | 10 AM to 1:30 PM | Open studio |
Doors open 15 minutes before a session starts, and the studio closes for fourteen holidays a year. The full list, with this year's dates, is on the class schedule page.
Other pottery near Bountiful
Bountiful has two studios of its own and a third in the next city. This is one of the better served places on this whole list.
- Make your own
Muddie Buddies Pottery Studio
In Bountiful. Beginning and intermediate wheel classes, hand building, kids classes, and monthly studio time at $80 for people with enough experience to work unsupervised or who have taken a class there. Adult classes $350 for twelve weeks or $275 for eight. They close for six holidays and the last two weeks of December, and they open the next year's signups in early December.
- Make your own
Bountiful Davis Art Center
On Main Street, created in 1974 by the city and the University of Utah. A hand building course for adults in four week blocks at $245, inside a wider art center. Hand building only in the current listing: no wheel class, no open studio. The gallery closes for turnover three times a year and over the holidays.
- Make your own
Sunstone Pottery & Supply and The Sunstone Studio
North Salt Lake, a few minutes south. Courses, workshops, memberships and open studio, plus a shop selling clay, glazes and kilns, and they will fire work you made elsewhere. Prices are not published and registration runs through their booking system.
Muddie Buddies is in your own city and their monthly studio time is $80. If you already know your way around a wheel and you just want somewhere to use one, that is a shorter drive and a smaller bill than us.
What people from Bountiful ask
How far is The Clay Hole from Bountiful?
About twenty eight miles and roughly thirty five minutes off peak, south on I-15 past downtown and out the bottom of the valley.
There are studios in Bountiful. Why drive to Draper?
For a four week hand building course or monthly studio time, do not. Both exist on your own Main Street. The reasons people come this far are open studio seven days a week, four kilns, a room of slab molds and a glaze wall with six hundred and fifty brush-on glazes on it.
Can I take a single pottery class instead of joining?
No. Monthly membership is the only way in, with no drop-in classes and no single sessions. At thirty five minutes that is a real commitment, and it is better to know now.
Do I need my own tools or clay?
No tools. Membership covers the wheels, the hand building tables, the slab molds, the glaze wall and the classes. Clay is by the bag at the front desk.
Do you take beginners?
Most people who join have never touched a wheel. The people who put up three feet of adobe at Main and Center had not done that before either, and that wall is a hundred and sixty four years into the job.
Can I get there without driving?
Largely. FrontRunner from Woods Cross to Draper station does most of it. The last couple of miles at the Draper end need a rideshare because the rail corridor sits in the way.
What happens if you join this week
You pick a level, sign the waiver, and turn up to your first class. Somebody shows you where everything is, you get a shelf, and you put your hands in clay the same night. Most people who come from Bountiful and join here have never touched a wheel.
- Nothing to bring. What to wear is covered on the what to wear page.
- The first day page walks through the whole first visit, in order.
- Free lessons for everything else live in Clay Hole University, whether or not you ever join.
Questions are quickest by text. The studio line is 385-241-5528. We are at 12896 S Pony Express Rd, Suite 100, Draper, UT 84020.