Pottery Classes Near SunCrest, Utah
The Clay Hole is a community pottery studio in Draper, at the bottom of the hill you already drive down for everything. Wheel throwing, hand building, slab molds, the glaze wall and the kilns, on one 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.
The drive down from SunCrest
Down Traverse Ridge Road and west. You lose about fifteen hundred feet of elevation in a few miles, which is a drive you already make for groceries.
- West and down SunCrest Drive to Traverse Ridge Road.
- Down to I-15, then north one exit or straight across on the surface roads.
- If you take the freeway, exit 289, west on Bangerter, then the 200 W exit and right on 13490 S.
- Past IKEA and Living Spaces on Pony Express Rd. We are on the left.
Ten minutes down, a bit longer back up. In winter it is whatever Traverse Ridge Road is doing that day, and you know that road better than we do.
None. SunCrest has no transit and no school bus service either. Everything from up there is a drive down.
At the bottom
Parking is free and shared with a few other businesses. Anything not marked reserved is yours. It is also flat, which after parking on your own street all winter is a novelty.
Six thousand feet, two valleys, and a mountain that already slid once
SunCrest sits around 6,000 feet on the ridge between the two valleys. From the loop you can see the Salt Lake Valley on the north side and Utah Valley on the south, which nowhere else on this list can offer.
Research published in 2017 suggests the whole East Traverse range, Point of the Mountain through Corner Canyon, is a single mega-landslide covering about 22 square miles, which moved old sedimentary rock about ten miles west between 6.5 and 6.1 million years ago.
So the neighborhood is built on the top of a collapsed mountain. Given what clay is and where it comes from, that is the most geologically interesting address on this whole site.
The part residents actually talk about
Snow removal, the Traverse Ridge special service district, and the winter when neighbors formed snowblower brigades because the plows could not reach them. Living up there is a choice with a bill attached, and everyone who made it knows that.
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.
On inversion days you are in the sun and the rest of us are under the lid
SunCrest was sold as a mountaintop escape from the polluted valleys below, and on the worst air days that is exactly what it is. You look down on gray soup and we are in it.
The trade is that everything else is down here. The market closed in 2008 and residents were driving at least four miles for basics. You already come down. The question is only whether there is anything worth coming down for that is not an errand.
Ten minutes from the bottom of your own road there is a room with 29 wheels, four kilns and a wall of glaze, and none of it cares what the air is doing.
- 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 at the bottom of the hill, so nothing wet rides Traverse Ridge Road.
- Open seven days a week, including the days the road is miserable.
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 SunCrest
Nothing on the ridge, obviously. Here is what is at the bottom of it besides us.
- Make your own
Cottonwood Clay Studio
7587 S State St in Midvale. From the top of the ridge that is a long way down and a long way north. Weekday taught classes, open studio for enrolled students.
- Paint your own
Color Me Mine Sandy
51 W 10600 S. Pre-made pieces you decorate and they fire. Worth knowing about for the evenings you are coming down anyway with the whole family.
SunCrest has no studio and will not get one. Everything is at the bottom of the hill, and we are among the closest things at the bottom of it.
What people from SunCrest ask
How far is The Clay Hole from SunCrest?
About ten minutes down. You come off Traverse Ridge Road onto the valley floor and the studio is a few minutes west of the freeway. Coming back up takes a little longer, as everything does.
What about winter?
That is your call and you know Traverse Ridge Road better than we do. The studio is open seven days a week, so a night you decide not to drive is a night you come a different day.
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 and nowhere to fire it.
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 and it stays on your shelf here, so nothing heavy or wet rides back up Traverse Ridge Road.
Do you take beginners?
Very few people arrive with any of this already learned. Every instructed class has instructors working the room, so a first session is not something you need to prepare for on the drive down.
What are the class times?
Instructed classes Monday through Thursday evenings plus Monday daytime. Friday evening and both weekend mornings are open studio. Seven days a week means you pick the night the road is behaving.
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 SunCrest 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.