Pottery Classes in Salt Lake County, Utah
The Clay Hole is a community pottery studio in Draper, near the south edge of Salt Lake County. Throwing, hand building, slab molds, glazing and firing, all included in one monthly membership.
The county is bigger than the valley, and two of its towns sit thousands of feet above it. Membership is the only way in, and there are no drop-in classes.
The county, by where you actually are in it
Sorted by part of the county rather than by drive time, because in a county this shape the part you live in tells you more about your week than the mileage does.
The south end
Draper
County line city, and the one the studio is in.
Bluffdale
Straddles the county line into Utah County at the south.
SunCrest
On the Traverse ridge, technically in two counties.
Riverton
Old farm town turned full city.
Herriman
Under the Oquirrhs, and one of the fastest grown in the state.
South Jordan
Holds Daybreak inside its own boundary.
Daybreak
A master planned development the size of a city.
Sandy
The county's third largest, and the studio's nearest big neighbor.
White City
An unincorporated enclave of 0.87 square miles.
The middle
Midvale
Old smelter town, now a mural town.
Murray
Its own police, fire, power, water, library and school district.
Holladay
Essentially built out, and protective of it.
Millcreek
Only a city since the end of 2016.
Cottonwood Heights
The city between the canyons.
Taylorsville
The geographic middle, hosting other people's institutions.
The west side
West Jordan
One of the largest cities in the state and still growing.
West Valley City
Four farm towns that merged in 1980 and kept none of the names.
Kearns
Unincorporated until 2017, on a street grid built for an army.
Magna
The far west corner, against the Oquirrhs.
The city and the bench
Salt Lake City
The county seat, and the top of the grid.
Downtown Salt Lake
Where the grid starts, at Temple Square.
The Avenues
Up the hill, on lettered streets.
Sugar House
The old brickyard neighborhood.
South Salt Lake
A separate city, and the one rebuilding itself around making things.
Alta and Brighton are also Salt Lake County, and they are the reason this page is not the same as the valley page. See below.
Two of this county's towns are nowhere near the valley, and one of them has 432 people
Brighton sits at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon at eight thousand seven hundred and seven feet. It incorporated on 1 January 2020 and had four hundred and thirty two people at that year's census. Alta is up Little Cottonwood, and neither of them is in the Salt Lake Valley in any sense that matters to a driver.
That is the difference between a valley and a county, and it is not a technicality. A county is an administrative line on a map. A valley is a shape in the ground.
Salt Lake County holds both: a basin with well over a million people in it, and two small towns up canyons where the road is the whole story for five months of the year.
Which is why neither has a page of its own
We write a page when there is a real audience and an honest drive to describe. For four hundred and thirty two people at nine thousand feet, in a canyon that closes, there is not. If you live up there, the studio is an hour on a good day and the Cottonwood Heights page is the closest useful one.
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.
Where you are in the county decides what your winter looks like
On the valley floor, weather is an inconvenience. Up a canyon it is a schedule. Traction laws, closures, avalanche control, and a road that is the only way in or out. Cottonwood Heights sits right at the mouth of both canyons and its residents know the difference better than anyone.
An indoor room that runs the same in February as in July is worth more to some people on this page than to others, and that is entirely about geography.
The studio is open seven days a week, all year, with four kilns that do not care what the canyon is doing. For most of the county that is a convenience. For some of it, it is the point.
- Open all year, including every month the canyons are unreliable.
- Seven days a week, so a closed road on Saturday is not a lost week.
- Your own shelf, so work waits for you rather than the other way round.
- Four instructed classes a month at the lowest level, eight at the highest.
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 across Salt Lake County
Salt Lake County has the densest ceramics teaching in Utah. These three cover the shapes we do not.
- Make your own
Beehive Pottery Studio
Heber City, outside the county but the nearest walk in wheel time to anyone on the east side. Open wheel at $15 an hour, hand building at $15 an hour, walk ins welcome, ages eight and up, and they fire outside work. Exactly the thing we do not offer.
- Make your own
Art Haus
Salt Lake City. Four week courses for adults and teens from fourteen, kids pottery from five, workshops and camps, running seven days a week. Try it out class $65, four week course $175, and they run a scholarship program for reduced or free classes.
- Make your own
Cottonwood Clay Studio
Midvale, in the middle of the county. Five week classes and try it sessions for adults and children weekdays, with open studio at weekends for people currently enrolled. That open studio runs only during the class term.
For a single evening or an hour on a wheel without joining anything, Art Haus and Beehive both do it and we do not. Start there if that is what you are after.
What people from Salt Lake County ask
Is Salt Lake County the same as the Salt Lake Valley?
No, and it is the reason both pages exist. The county includes Alta and Brighton, which are towns up the Cottonwood canyons rather than in the valley. Brighton sits at 8,707 feet and had 432 people at the 2020 census.
Where in the county is the studio?
Draper, near the south edge, at 12896 S Pony Express Rd. From the county seat it is about half an hour straight down I-15.
Is there a page for Alta or Brighton?
No. We write a page where there is a real audience and an honest drive to describe, and for a few hundred people up a canyon that closes there is not. The Cottonwood Heights page is the nearest useful one.
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. Art Haus in Salt Lake City runs a try it out class at $65, which is the better first step.
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.
Do you take beginners?
Most people who join have never touched a wheel. Every instructed class has instructors working the room, so nobody spends twenty minutes stuck and too polite to say so.
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 Salt Lake County 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.