Pottery near Highland

Pottery Classes Near Highland, Utah

The Clay Hole is a community pottery studio in Draper, about twenty-five minutes north of Highland. Wheels, hand building tables, slab molds, glaze and firing, on one monthly membership.

Your town threw a caber because somebody thought the hills looked Scottish. Commitment to a resemblance is a real virtue. Membership is the only way in, and there are no drop-in classes.

See membership The drive from Highland
A man hoisting an enormous clay cylinder like a caber at a summer field event in Highland, Utah while onlookers laugh, bunting strung overhead
Getting here

The drive from Highland

Highland has no freeway of its own, so the first few minutes are surface roads west to SR-92. After that it is one straight run north over the pass.

  1. West on SR-92 to I-15 at exit 284.
  2. North on I-15 over the Point of the Mountain to exit 289, Bangerter Highway.
  3. West on Bangerter to the 200 W exit, then right on 13490 S.
  4. Pony Express Rd past IKEA and Living Spaces. We are on the left.

About twenty-five minutes, of which the first five are just getting to an on-ramp. Everyone in Highland has already factored that part into every trip they take.

Nothing direct. Highland has no station of its own, so this is a car in both directions.

When you get here

Free and shared with a few other businesses. Anything not marked reserved is yours, and there is a great deal of it.

Full directions and map
Highland ground

Scottish immigrants thought it looked like home, and the town has not let it go since

Homesteaders arrived in the 1870s and the Scottish ones among them named the place after the Highlands because the ground reminded them of it. That is the entire origin. A resemblance, noticed once, written down.

The city was not incorporated until 13 July 1977, and in 1970 there were two hundred and eight people living here. Most towns with a name like that would have quietly dropped the bit.

Highland did the opposite. The Highland Fling runs from late July into August with heavy athletics, the caber toss, the stone put, the sheaf toss for height and a State Hammer Championship, plus Highland dance from two named schools. A hundred and fifty years on from somebody's passing comment about the view.

Which is a reasonable way to treat a hobby

Pick a thing on thin evidence, then take it entirely seriously for a century and a half until it is true. That is roughly how anybody ends up good at the wheel, too.

What is actually here

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.

29pottery wheels
650+brush on glazes
248slab molds
4kilns
  • 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.
See the Mold Room
Why the drive is not the cost

A city built on purpose to have nothing in it

Highland kept large lots while the rest of the county densified, and it kept retail thin deliberately. Wider yards, more separation, more sky. People moved here for exactly that and they were right to.

The trade is real. The median age is twenty-six point nine and more than a third of the city is under eighteen, which is a lot of household and not much within walking distance of it.

So the evening has to be somewhere else. Twenty-five minutes north is a room with twenty-nine wheels in it, which is more equipment than the whole city holds.

  • Seven days a week, so a Fling weekend does not cost you the week.
  • Teenagers 14 and over can join alongside a parent who is also a member.
  • Your own shelf, so nothing wet has to make the trip home.
  • Four instructed classes a month at the lowest level, eight at the highest.
See membership Walk through the 360 tour
What it costs

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.

LevelMonthlyClasses included
Green Level$145 a month4 classes a month
Yellow Level$170 a month5 classes a month
Purple Level$200 a month6 classes a month
Black Level$275 a month8 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 membership rules

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.

See membership How membership works
The week

When the studio is open

WhenHoursWhat it is
Monday daytime10:30 AM to 2 PMInstructed class
Monday to Thursday evenings6:30 PM to 10 PMInstructed class
Friday evening6:30 PM to 10 PMOpen studio
Saturday and Sunday mornings10 AM to 1:30 PMOpen 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.

The rest of the field

Other pottery near Highland

Nothing in Highland. The two nearest places to make your own work are one town over in each direction.

  • Make your own

    White Stone Pottery

    In Alpine, which for Highland is the next street over. One potter, wheel lessons only, five students to a class, four two hour sessions a month, sixteen and over. It was full with a waitlist and it does not run December or January. The site is plain http and some browsers will flag it.

  • Make your own

    The Kreative Kiln

    Pleasant Grove, the other side of the Murdock Canal Trail from you. Six week wheel throwing at $299, hand building, and they fire work made elsewhere.

  • Make your own

    Utah Center for the Ceramic Arts

    In Provo, further south. Seven wheels, a slab roller, an extruder and two kilns, with classes, open studio and memberships. It opened in 2025, so it is young, and their site blocks automated readers so details are worth calling about.

If you want a seat at White Stone, get on that waitlist. It is four minutes from you and one potter teaching five people at a time is a genuinely good way to learn.

Compare 14 Utah studios Every pottery studio in Utah
Nearby

The rest of Utah Valley

Same studio, same shelves, a different starting point. See every city in Utah Valley. Or by county, every city in Utah County.

Questions

What people from Highland ask

How far is The Clay Hole from Highland?

About twenty-five minutes. West on SR-92 to the freeway at exit 284, then north on I-15 over the Point of the Mountain. The first five minutes are getting to an on-ramp, which is the Highland tax on every trip.

Is it worth the drive?

If your city has no retail by design, everything is a drive already. This one ends in a ten thousand square foot room instead of a parking lot at a strip mall.

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.

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. Anyone who has watched a first attempt at a sheaf toss knows that the early stage of a physical skill is mostly comic, and that this is fine.

Can my teenager come with me?

Yes, from fourteen, alongside a parent who is also a member. In a city where over a third of the population is under eighteen this comes up more here than almost anywhere else on our list.

Starting

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 Highland and join here have never touched a wheel.

See membership Read the FAQs

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.