Pottery near Lehi

Pottery Classes Near Lehi, Utah

The Clay Hole is a community pottery studio in Draper, about twenty minutes north of Lehi. Wheels, hand building, slab molds, the glaze wall and the kilns, all on one monthly membership.

Lehi fired brick on a twenty day cycle for thirty-four years. We unload a kiln the next day. Membership is the only way in, and there are no drop-in classes.

See membership The drive from Lehi
A woman lifting a finished glazed mug out of an open kiln at dusk in Lehi, Utah, old brick kiln stacks silhouetted through the door behind her
Getting here

The drive from Lehi

North over the Point, and you are there. Lehi is the first Utah County city on the other side of the pass, which makes this the shortest drive on this half of the list.

  1. North on I-15 from exit 282 or exit 284, over the Point of the Mountain.
  2. Exit 289, Bangerter Highway, then west to the 200 W exit.
  3. Right on 13490 S, which connects over to Pony Express Rd.
  4. Past IKEA and Living Spaces. We are on the left.

About thirteen road miles and nineteen minutes with the freeway behaving. The Point is the whole variable. You already know what it does at five.

FrontRunner runs Lehi to Draper station, but the station is a couple of miles out from here and the rail corridor sits in the way, so the walk is not short. It ends as a rideshare or it stays a car.

When you get here

Free, and shared with a few other businesses. Anything not marked reserved is yours. No permit and no app, which after the Thanksgiving Point lots in April is a small mercy.

Full directions and map
Lehi ground

They fired brick here on a twenty day cycle, and we open the kiln tomorrow

The Lehi Brick Company started in August 1891 and fired its first kiln by the end of September. Under Nephi Slater from 1893 they worked two clays out of the same ground: red surface clay in the top twelve inches, yellow clay six to eight feet down. A horse turned the pug mill. Six workers made five thousand bricks a day.

The kilns were twelve feet high, sixteen wide and thirty long, and held a hundred and twenty thousand bricks. Coal fired. Twenty days to burn and cool, every time.

Then during the war the Defense Plant Corporation built a silica fire brick plant here for one purpose: to line the furnaces at the Geneva steel mill down the road. Fourteen and a half acres, six hundred thousand dollars, six kilns. Lehi spent those years making the brick that held other people's fire.

And the smokestack is a cell tower now

The Lehi Sugar Factory was built in 1890 and 1891 and ran until 1924. Its smokestack is still standing, converted into a cell phone tower. Beets to bandwidth, on the same chimney.

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 this drive is different from your other one

You already cross the Point. This is the version where nobody is waiting on you

Lehi is the largest tech hub between the two valleys and a great many people here drive north or south on this exact freeway to sit at a screen. The road is not new to you. What is new is doing it with nothing due at the other end.

Twenty minutes is short enough that a Tuesday evening works and long enough that the day is over by the time you park. That is a useful amount of road.

Then you sit down at a wheel, where the clay does not care what shipped this week. It is going to be off center until you fix it, and fixing it takes both hands.

  • 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 work stays here between visits instead of riding back over the Point.
  • Seven days a week, so you pick the night the freeway is not a parking lot.
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 Lehi

Lehi has no pottery studio of its own where you make the piece yourself. Here is the field, nearest first.

  • Make your own

    Throw Art Studio

    In Provo, twenty minutes the other way. Two hour wheel sessions, four week beginner courses with evening studio access, and kids hand building. Worth knowing: their menu mentions Lehi classes and memberships, but no Lehi address and no membership price are published. Ask before you count on it.

  • Make your own

    Copper Kiln

    In Herriman, over the Point and west. Eight week courses in hand building, wheel, glazing and sculpture for $270, which includes twenty-five pounds of clay, firings and one open studio day a week. You can start any week.

  • Make your own

    The Kreative Kiln

    In Pleasant Grove, south instead of north. Six week wheel throwing at $299, hand building, and they will fire work you made somewhere else, which almost nobody in the county does.

If twenty minutes north is the wrong direction on a weeknight, Copper Kiln and The Kreative Kiln are both real studios with real teachers. We would rather you were throwing somewhere than reading about it here.

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 Lehi ask

How far is The Clay Hole from Lehi?

About thirteen road miles and nineteen minutes, north on I-15 over the Point of the Mountain. Lehi is the closest Utah County city to the studio, so this is the shortest version of this drive anyone in the county makes.

Is it worth crossing the Point for?

You already do it. The difference is that this one has no meeting at the end of it. Twenty minutes buys you a room with twenty-nine wheels, four kilns and somebody standing there who can tell you why your rim keeps going oval.

Can I take a single pottery class instead of joining?

No. Monthly membership is the only way in. There are 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 bought by the bag at the front desk, so nothing has to ride over the Point in the back of your car.

Do you take beginners?

Most people who join have never touched a wheel. In a city that added nearly twenty thousand people in five years, a room where everybody is new to something is not an unfamiliar feeling.

What are the class times?

Instructed classes Monday through Thursday evenings plus Monday daytime. Friday evening and both weekend mornings are open studio. Monday daytime is the one Lehi people take when they want the freeway empty in both directions.

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 Lehi 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.