Pottery Classes Near Park City, Utah
The Clay Hole is a community pottery studio in Draper, about an hour from Park City by way of Parleys Canyon. Wheels, hand building, slab molds, the glaze wall and the kilns, all on one monthly membership.
This is the longest drive on this entire site, from the one town on it where everybody already drives everywhere. Membership is the only way in, and there are no drop-in classes.
The drive from Park City
Down the canyon and then south. You come off the mountain on I-80 through Parleys, drop into the valley, and run the length of it.
- North on SR-224 to Kimball Junction, then west on I-80 down Parleys Canyon.
- South on I-215, then south on I-15 the length of the valley.
- Exit 289, Bangerter Highway, west to the 200 W exit, right on 13490 S.
- Pony Express Rd past IKEA and Living Spaces. We are on the left.
About forty two miles and roughly fifty five minutes with the road clear. Parleys Summit is the highest point on I-80 in Utah and the lower canyon is narrow and twisty, so winter and ski traffic both change the number.
Nothing that works. Park City Transit is free and excellent inside Park City and does not come down here. This is a car, and in the wrong weather it is a car with opinions.
When you get here
Free and shared with a few other businesses, and there is plenty of it. Anything not marked reserved is yours. No structure, no validation and no hourly rate.
The chairlift on Main Street hangs off hundred year old mining towers
The Town Lift loads at the bottom of Main Street, which is already unusual. What is more unusual is what holds it up: the big towers along its line are actual mining tram structures from the early 1900s, not modern lift towers.
It runs about six thousand six hundred feet, one of the longest fixed grip lifts in the country, and it runs year round, in pulse mode in summer for people who are not skiing.
Silver built this town. Soldiers came over from Big Cottonwood in late 1868 and found it, George Hearst bought the Ontario claim in 1872 for twenty seven thousand dollars and took over fifty million in ore out of it, and by July 1949 every mine had closed and put eleven hundred people out of work. The towers stayed. Somebody hung a chairlift on them.
Sixty four Victorian buildings, and one Egyptian one
Sixty four structures on Main Street are on the National Register. The Egyptian Theatre at 328 Main opened on 25 December 1926, built with an Egyptologist consulted on the lotus leaves and scarabs, on the site of a theater that had collapsed under a snow load in January 1916. It turns a hundred this December.
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.
Eighty eight percent of the people who work here drive in. You already do this
Only about twelve percent of Park City's workforce lives in Park City, below the city's own fifteen percent goal. Forty four percent of the housing stock is short term rental. Roughly half the commuters come up from Salt Lake County, most of them through Parleys.
So the canyon is not an obstacle here the way it would be anywhere else on this list. It is a road this community uses constantly, in both directions, in every season, and the people who make Park City work drive it twice a day.
Park Silly Sunday Market has run nineteen years, drawn over three million people and incubated a hundred and seventy five small businesses. This is a town that buys handmade things from the person who made them. An hour down the canyon is where you get to be that person.
- Seven days a week, so you pick the day the canyon is clear.
- Your own shelf, which at an hour each way is what makes it possible at all.
- 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.
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 Park City
Park City and the Wasatch Back have three real options and one of them is better set up for drop-in work than we are. Read them first.
- Make your own
Kimball Art Center
In Park City. Clay hand building and wheel throwing in six week blocks for adults, teens from twelve and youth from eight, inside a full art center, with a teen clay club alongside. Adult wheel or hand building $270 plus a $50 material fee. Material fees are separate from tuition on every ceramics class they list, so budget for both.
- Make your own
Beehive Pottery Studio
Heber City, about half an hour from Park City and the opposite of us in the best way. Open wheel at $15 an hour, hand building at $15 an hour, five week courses, one time lessons, memberships, ceramic painting and kiln firing for outside work. Walk ins welcome for open studio, ages eight and up.
- Paint your own
Paint Fusion
Park City. Painting pre-made ceramic pieces which they glaze and fire, plus glass fusing, private classes and parties. Studio fee $10 for adults and $6 for children thirteen and under, with pieces from $3. No wheel, and the easiest thing on this list to do on a whim.
If you want to walk in and use a wheel for an hour without joining anything, Beehive in Heber does exactly that at $15 an hour and we do not do it at all. That is a shorter drive and a smaller commitment, and it is the right answer for a lot of people reading this.
What people from Park City ask
How far is The Clay Hole from Park City?
About forty two miles and roughly fifty five minutes clear. North to Kimball Junction, west on I-80 down Parleys Canyon, then south on I-215 and I-15. It is the longest drive on this site.
What about Guardsman Pass?
It is closed roughly November through May, which includes the whole ski season, so it is not a route you can rely on. Parleys is the year round answer. In summer Guardsman is a beautiful drive and it tops out at nine thousand seven hundred feet, but plan around the canyon, not the pass.
Is an hour worth it?
For most people in Park City, honestly, no, and Kimball Art Center or Beehive in Heber will serve you better. It is worth it for somebody who wants a studio they belong to, seven days a week, with their own shelf, and who is already used to driving Parleys without thinking about 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. Beehive Pottery Studio in Heber runs open wheel at $15 an hour, which is exactly the thing we do not offer.
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 here, and it stays on your shelf, so nothing wet goes back up the canyon.
Do you take beginners?
Most people who join have never touched a wheel. A town where a hundred and seventy five small businesses got started at a Sunday market understands that everything begins badly at a folding table somewhere.
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 Park City 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.