Pottery near Midvale

Pottery Classes Near Midvale, Utah

The Clay Hole is a community pottery studio in Draper, a straight run south from Midvale. Throwing, hand building, slab molds, glaze and firing, all on a single monthly membership.

Membership is the only way in. There are no drop-in classes and no single sessions, which is the part most people want to know first.

See membership The drive from Midvale
A potter painting broad underglaze strokes onto a flat platter in front of a huge abstract Main Street mural in Midvale, Utah, the same gesture at a smaller size
Getting here

The drive from Midvale

South. You can do the whole thing on Main Street if you want to, or take the freeway and be here in ten minutes.

  1. South on I-15, or south on Main Street and State Street the whole way.
  2. I-15 to Exit 291, 12300 South.
  3. West to Lone Peak Parkway, also signed 125 West, then south.
  4. Lone Peak Parkway runs into Pony Express Rd. We are at 12896, before IKEA.

About six and a half miles from Midvale Main, and roughly ten minutes. One of the shortest drives of any city on this site.

Midvale has three TRAX platforms across two lines, which is a lot for a city of its size. None of them reaches us. This one is a drive.

When you get here

Parking is free and shared with a few other businesses. Anything not marked reserved is yours, and it is easier than Midvale Main on a mural festival weekend.

Full directions and map
Midvale ground

A brick main street that is turning itself into a gallery

Midvale Main was laid out in 1909 for the smelter town and it is brick. It now carries roughly fifty murals, with a stretch of them repainted every June during a mural festival, and the city has put nearly two million dollars into public art.

The Pearl on Main opened in 1918 as the Iris and has been a performance venue continuously ever since. Cinema several times over, comedy club, children's theater, now concerts and plays.

Behind all of that, five smelters ran on Midvale ground from 1871 to 1971 across 446 acres. That land was cleaned up and is now offices, apartments and a TRAX stop. Not many towns rebuild themselves twice.

The best Midvale story

Before 1909 the town had three names at once. A resident put it this way: if you talked about the town it was East Jordan, if you mailed a letter it went to West Jordan, and if you bought a train ticket home it was stamped Bingham Junction. They took over 200 suggestions and voted 273 to 85 for Midvale.

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 leave your own streets

A town that decided to be a place where things get made

Fifty murals, a hundred-year-old theater, a mural festival every June and an arts district the mayor talks about by name. Midvale is one of the few places in this valley actively choosing to be about making things rather than buying them.

What it has is walls that other people painted. What it does not have is somewhere you make the thing yourself.

Ten minutes south there is a wall of 650 glazes and 29 wheels, and nobody there has painted it for you.

  • 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 a project survives a busy week.
  • Open seven days a week, which fits an odd schedule better than a course does.
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 Midvale

Midvale is one of the few cities on this list with its own place to make pottery, and it is a genuinely different model.

  • Make your own

    Cottonwood Clay Studio

    7587 S State St, in Midvale. Taught classes Monday through Friday, and weekend open studio that is reserved for people enrolled in a current class. It is in your city and it is a genuinely good option. If a structured taught class is what you want, go there.

  • Paint your own

    Color Me Mine Sandy

    51 W 10600 S, just south of you down State Street. Finished pieces you decorate and they fire. Lower commitment, different evening.

Cottonwood Clay is in your city and we are ten minutes away. The real difference is that their open studio is for enrolled students and ours is open to every member, seven days a week. Pick on that, not on distance.

Compare 14 Utah studios Every pottery studio in Utah
Nearby

The rest of the South Valley

Same studio, same shelves, a different starting point. See every city in the South Valley. Or by county, every city in Salt Lake County.

Questions

What people from Midvale ask

How far is The Clay Hole from Midvale?

About six and a half miles from Midvale Main, roughly ten minutes. You can do the entire drive on Main Street and State Street without touching the freeway.

There is already a pottery studio in Midvale. Why drive to Draper?

Cottonwood Clay runs taught classes Monday through Friday and reserves its open studio for people enrolled in a current class. We are a monthly membership where open studio is included for every member on top of the classes, seven days a week. Theirs is closer and for some people it is the better fit.

Can I take a single pottery class instead of joining?

No. Monthly membership is the only way in. Pottery takes weeks to finish a piece and a one night class sends you home with wet clay.

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, so the only thing you bring is yourself and something you do not mind ruining.

Do you take beginners?

Most people who sign up have never thrown anything. For a town that has spent years covering its own walls in other people's art, making something yourself is the obvious next step.

What are the class times?

Instructed classes Monday through Thursday evenings plus Monday daytime. Friday evening and both weekend mornings are open studio, and that open studio is the part that differs from a taught course.

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 Midvale 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.