Pottery in Draper, Utah
The Clay Hole is in Draper, on Pony Express Road, the next building north of Living Spaces and just down the frontage road from IKEA. Wheels, hand building tables, slab molds, the glaze wall and the kilns, all on one monthly membership.
This is the page for people who already live here. No drive to talk about. Membership is still the only way in, and there are no drop-in classes, which is the part most people want to know first.
Where it is, for people who already know the roads
You have driven past it. It is the industrial row behind the furniture stores, between the freeway and the Jordan River.
- Pony Express Road, west of I-15, south of 12300 South.
- Past IKEA and Living Spaces. We are on the left, the next building north of Living Spaces.
- The lot is shared with a few other businesses.
- Any spot not marked reserved for one of them is yours, and it is free.
From most of Draper this is five or six minutes. From SunCrest it is a run down Traverse Ridge Road. From the east bench it is 12300 South the whole way. Nobody in this city has an excuse about the distance.
Draper Town Center and Crescent View TRAX are both a few minutes out, and Draper FrontRunner station is about two miles. None of them lands close enough to walk, so plan on driving even from inside the city.
When you get there
Parking is free and shared with a few other businesses in the lot. Anything not marked reserved for one of them is yours. You have driven past this building a hundred times without knowing there was a studio behind it.
Everything first built in this town came out of the ground it stands on
The whole valley floor here is old Lake Bonneville lakebed, and the shorelines are still cut into the side of the Traverse Mountains where you can see them from the freeway.
The first settlers dug into that and built with it. The Old White Meetinghouse inside the Draper Fort was adobe, the vestry finished in 1860 and the main hall in 1863. The oldest brick house in Draper, the Fitzgerald house on Pioneer Road, went up in 1870 with brick walls lined in adobe.
Adobe is unfired clay. Brick is fired clay. This town was made out of the same material we hand you by the bag, about a mile from where they dug it.
One honest correction
There is no historic pottery works in Draper and we are not going to invent one. What this ground has is adobe, fired brick and hand-cut stone. The pottery part started in March 2025, with us.
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 with 150 miles of trail and nowhere indoors to make something
Draper City claims more trails and more open space than any city on the Wasatch Front. Corner Canyon, Ghost Falls, the suspension bridge, the Flight Park with the paragliders stacked over the ridge. In summer this is one of the best places in the state to be outside.
Then it snows, or it is 104 degrees, or it is a Tuesday in February and the inversion has put the whole valley under a gray lid.
That is the gap. Somewhere to go that is not a screen, not a gym and not your own front room, on the nights the canyon is not an option.
- Four instructed classes a month at the lowest level, more at the higher ones.
- Open studio on Friday evening and both weekend mornings, on top of the classes.
- Your own shelf, so a project can sit half finished for a week without living on your kitchen table.
- The 360 tour will show you the whole room before you ever sign anything.
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 Draper
There is no other studio in Draper where you make the piece yourself. The nearest options are north of us, and for some people they are the better fit.
- Make your own
Cottonwood Clay Studio
7587 S State St in Midvale, about fifteen minutes up State Street. Taught classes Monday through Friday, and their open studio time is reserved for people enrolled in a current class.
- Paint your own
Color Me Mine Sandy
51 W 10600 S, the nearest paint your own to Draper. You choose a piece that is already made and decorate it, and they fire it for you. A good evening with kids and not the same activity at all.
If we have missed somewhere in Draper, tell us and we will add it to this page. We would rather point you somewhere useful than pretend we are the only door.
What people from Draper ask
Where exactly is The Clay Hole in Draper?
On Pony Express Road, west of I-15, the next building north of Living Spaces and just down the frontage road from IKEA. Parking is shared with a few other businesses and anything not marked reserved is free to use.
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 no way to fire it. If a single evening is what you want, Color Me Mine in Sandy is the closer answer.
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, which for somebody who lives in Draper means picking it up on the way home rather than ordering it in.
Do you take beginners?
Most people who join here have never touched a wheel, and a good number of them are your neighbors. Every instructed class has instructors working the room, so nobody sits stuck for twenty minutes.
What are the class times?
Instructed classes Monday through Thursday evenings plus Monday daytime. Friday evening and both weekend mornings are open studio. Living in the city means you can take the odd weekday morning slot that people driving in cannot.
Is there anywhere closer if I live in Draper?
Not for making the piece yourself. We are the only studio in the city that does wheel throwing and hand building, and that is a statement about the city rather than about us.
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 live in Draper 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.