The Clayhouse

A unique local institution. Classes are held in a big room of glazes and clays and sinks, coffee, and quiet intensity as people make art in what psychologists call parallel play. The results are some brilliant and diverse ceramics. Go there to shop, go there to learn to make pottery, go there to have your sculptures fired by people who know what they’re doing. Go to the Clayhouse.

I am taking a class here. It’s my first pottery wheel class. I am really enjoying it. The owner/​teacher is helpful, nice, and knowledgeable.
The cost is pretty average. It’s about $ 300 for six weeks/​classes and that includes the membership. It’s comes with your first 25 pounds of clay. I’m on to my second after two classes. But the clay is reasonable. $ 13 for soladate/​25 pounds. You get 3000 square inches of kiln (space) per class. We learn how to glaze, trim, fire, and throw.
As far as hours go. It’s not open at night, so you have to have time during the day. It’s a very communal atmosphere. The regular house are 10 – 3, but if you get there before three and are still working, you can stay as long as you need to.

The Clayhouse is the only place in Santa Monica that cures my ennui and makes me feel at my most authentic. I started last fall when Tani let me join a class already several weeks in progress and was very helpful in catching me up to the others. Classes are a great value– $ 280 for unlimited studio access for 6 weeks, including all materials. Monthly memberships are $ 205. Clays range around $ 10 – 15 for 25 pound bags. The Clayhouse charges a fraction of the cost of other options, and has more generous firing limits (3,000 sq inches for classes and 6,000 sq inches per month for members).
The studio is very quiet in the summer months, so you get the biggest bang for your buck and quickest turnaround on pieces then. Christmas-​time is madness; everyone works up a storm readying for the holiday sale and making Christmas gifts, so I do not recommend starting then.
If you are looking for camaraderie, there are plenty of interesting, wisened, wonderfully artistic women to chat and work with. It is really a community of friends, and we share and collaborate often. No snooty, private artists here! On Wednesdays around noon, we have fabulous handbuilding workshops where we all share best practices and create new functional pieces. It really represents the best of this studio.
Great value, (mostly) great people, and a great workspace– a rare gem in Santa Monica.

Suuuper rude service — shocking actually. I have never experienced such unnecessary vitriol and condescension.

Tani runs a great creative laboratory and I have found her to be very fair with her time and her prices. I love throwing pots here :)

Santa Monica’s secret gem. However, they may want to be kept a secret.
At first glance, or even to the uninformed, the place looks like a small boutique ceramic ware shop. Little do you know, if you walk through to the back, there is a huge ceramic studio with incredibly high ceilings, 10+ electric throwing wheels, hand building wheels, 20+ glazes, giant kilns, shelves on shelves of work, etc.
From my understanding you can do classes or you can do a monthly membership. I opted for the membership ($ 205 month) and was one of my best decisions I had ever made. The price is unbeatable, IMO.
I fell in love with the process of throwing, the space, and the fellow 30+ members. Not to mention the owner Tani. She is the best part of this amazing spot.

You won’t find a better place to either learn or get back into ceramics, be it the wheel or handbuilding! Both Tani, the owner, and Diana are great teachers — always patient, helpful and encouraging. No matter how you do the first time, Tani will help you get a ‘keepsake,’ even if your bowl is better used as a door stop, as all first pieces are — LOL. Both Tani and Diana are just as excited as you are when you move through each improvement, and will make sure you get to the next steps in your classes. You will also find warm welcome from the studio artists, and realize you are in a special cozy community all its own behind the busy Santa Monica Blvd., where you can just relax and become re-​energized from the few hours you are there.

I love this place. If you want to learn pottery take a class with Tani the owner. She’s an amazing teacher, incredible person & one bad-​ass lady!!! I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from her. I cant imagine there is anyone better in Los Angeles.

The ladies here convinced me to buy the wrong clay just because it was more expensive. They have lost a customer.

At first this establishment, through the window, looks like it maybe just a place to buy ceramic ware, but beyond the showroom is an incredible workshop where people with memberships make all kinds of clay artwork and functional pieces like bowls and teapots, and things like that. They have lots of pottery wheels for members and many classes to teach you how to use them.
I took a hand-​building class (to make things without a wheel) and now I am making mugs and vases and all kinds of cool ceramic stuff. All the members are really friendly and helpful as are the women who run the place. Tani, the owner is so helpful and generous with her time and advice.
I am now hooked on this — and I even started selling what I have made there! So thanks to them I now have a sideline business as well.
Highly recommend the Clayhouse.