Pottery Classes Near Springville, Utah
The Clay Hole is a community pottery studio in Draper, about forty minutes north of Springville. Wheel work, hand building, slab molds, the glaze wall and the kilns, all on one monthly membership.
Your town built a museum because teenagers kept buying art a penny at a time. Membership is the only way in here, and there are no drop-in classes.
The drive from Springville
North on I-15 the whole length of Utah Valley, then over the Point. This is the second longest drive on this site and the freeway does all of it.
- North on I-15 from exit 260 or exit 261.
- The length of Utah Valley, then over the Point of the Mountain.
- Exit 289, Bangerter Highway, west to the 200 W exit, then right on 13490 S.
- Pony Express Rd past IKEA and Living Spaces. We are on the left.
Twenty nine to thirty freeway miles, so forty minutes or so off peak. Longer at five. This is a trip you plan, not one you decide on at seven.
There is no station in Springville. Provo's is the nearest and the connection at the Draper end is poor, so treat this as a car.
When you get here
Free and shared with a few other businesses. Anything not marked reserved is yours. Easier than Main Street during Art City Days, which is a low bar and an honest one.
The high school students bought the art, a penny a vote
In the spring of 1903 the painter John Hafen and two community leaders heard a lecture at Brigham Young Academy about art's refining influence, and came home determined to give local children the same. Hafen donated The Mountain Stream to Springville High School to start a collection. Cyrus Dallin, who was born here, donated Paul Revere.
Then the students paid for the rest of it. They ran an annual Art Queen contest where votes cost a penny each, and the school matched what they raised to buy new work.
The collection outgrew the hallways, so the town built it a museum. It went up in 1937 as a WPA project in Spanish Colonial Revival, designed by Claud S. Ashworth, and it holds around two thousand three hundred works now. Admission is still free.
What Springville does not have
No brickyard, no pottery, no kilns. We looked. Springville's making-things history is paint and bronze, not clay, and we are not going to invent a clay heritage for a town that has a better one of its own.
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.
A town that is very good at buying art, and thin on places to make it
The Spring Salon started in the early 1920s and is now one of the most important regional art competitions in the country. The 2024 salon took a record fourteen hundred and fifty submissions and hung two hundred and seventy six. There are Gary Price and Jeff Decker bronzes up and down Main Street, and Dallin's work in the museum.
All of which you look at. The town has spent a hundred and twenty years being excellent at appreciating things other people made.
Forty minutes north is a room where you are the one who made it, badly at first. A penny a vote is roughly what those students thought that was worth, and they were buying finished work. Yours starts wet.
- Open studio Friday evening and both weekend mornings, which suits a forty minute drive better than a weeknight.
- Your own shelf, so one trip a week is a working rhythm and not a compromise.
- Four instructed classes a month at the lowest level, eight at the highest.
- Seven days a week, so you pick the day rather than the day picking you.
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 Springville
Nothing in Springville. The nearest places to make your own work are in Provo, with one unusual option up the canyon.
- Make your own
Utah Center for the Ceramic Arts
Provo, about fifteen minutes north. Seven wheels, a slab roller, an extruder and two kilns, with classes, open studio and memberships. It opened in 2025 and its site blocks automated readers, so ring rather than assume.
- Make your own
Throw Art Studio
Provo. Two hour wheel experiences from $29.99 a wheel for up to two people plus the piece, four week beginner courses with evening studio access, and group bookings.
- Make your own
Sundance Mountain Resort Art Studio
Up the canyon at Sundance. One pottery class, wheel or hand built, by appointment at three set times daily, age seven and up, materials and studio time included, $150. Nothing on their page limits it to resort guests. Expensive for one session, and a genuinely lovely way to spend an afternoon.
Provo is fifteen minutes and we are forty. If you want to try a wheel once before committing to anything, do it there, not here.
What people from Springville ask
How far is The Clay Hole from Springville?
About forty minutes off peak. Twenty nine to thirty freeway miles north on I-15, up the length of Utah Valley and over the Point of the Mountain.
Is forty minutes worth it?
Only if you will use it. At this distance a membership works for somebody coming once a week with a shelf of work going, and makes very little sense for somebody coming once a month. We would rather you did that arithmetic now.
Can I take a single pottery class instead of joining?
No. Monthly membership is the only way in. No drop-in classes and no single sessions, so there is no cheap way to test a forty minute drive, which is a fair thing to hold against us.
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, so the trip is never about supplies.
Do you take beginners?
Most people who join have never touched a wheel. A town whose art collection was started by schoolchildren voting with pennies understands that the beginning of a thing rarely looks like much.
What are the class times?
Instructed classes Monday through Thursday evenings plus Monday daytime. Friday evening and both weekend mornings are open studio. At this distance most people take a weekend morning.
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 Springville 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.