Mission Warehouse Pottery Studio: 65+ Glazes at Hickory Clay

Hickory Clay is a pottery studio at 2710 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, on the corner of Harrison in the Mission District, and it has no membership waitlist right now. Membership costs $185 a month for intermediate and advanced potters, billed $370 every two months. Beginners start with evening wheel courses, and the November round costs $350 for six Tuesdays or $375 for seven Mondays.

The studio was designed by Ashley Hinton, a working architect, and built by her with co-owner Daniel Karvasales. The pair hauled 10,000 pounds of debris out of a 1920s Mission District warehouse and then custom-made every cubby, worktable and shelf. The payoff is the room itself. Twenty-two wheels sit under double-height clerestory windows, with custom cubbies lining the walls.

The rest of the floor plan follows the same owner-built logic. There is a dedicated hand-building zone with a slab roller and more than 75 plaster hump molds, and a 200-square-foot damp room for work in progress, which Hickory Clay describes as unusual among SF pottery studios. Two kilns fire four to six times a week, so most pieces come out within a few days rather than waiting weeks.

Hickory Clay calls itself the only cone 6 community studio in the Bay Area that designs and mixes all of its own glazes. There are 25 core glazes kept in 10-gallon batches all year, plus 40 seasonal glazes in one-gallon batches that rotate through the year, and more than 50 colored slips. The glaze room has a two-compartment sink and shared sieves, brushes, tongs and wax resist.

For students this matters more than it sounds. Glazing is included in the price of clay, and pieces under 10 inches carry no firing fee, so testing a new seasonal color costs nothing extra. Clay runs $25 for a 25-pound bag for most bodies, $30 for porcelain or the Dragon Fruit body, and $10 for recycled clay. Members can also bring their own commercial glazes.

Classes meet once a week for two and a half hours, are capped at 11 students, and include clay, tools and aprons. Students get 25 pounds of clay from five available bodies and can practice in open studio five days a week, which the studio contrasts with the single practice day common elsewhere. Every instructor keeps their own studio practice outside teaching.

The November and December intro to throwing and glazing runs on two nights. Mondays at 6:30pm with Cathy run seven weeks for $375, starting November 2, with November 23 skipped. Tuesdays at 6:30pm with Theresa run six weeks for $350, starting November 3. The curriculum moves from throwing to trimming to glazing, and the seven-week version adds hand-building and handles.

Two popular formats are on a holiday break. The Sunday four-week classes return in January, and Introduction to Handbuilding, a five-week tour of pinching, slabs, coils, carving and glazing, also comes back in January on weekends. If you can only take clay on a weekend, skip the November round and join the newsletter, which goes out once a month and carries early access to class dates.

Students who can already center two pounds of clay have a separate track. Next Step Wheel meets on Thursdays at 6:30pm with Keisha from November 5, covering taller cylinders, calipers, collared bottles, trimmed foot rings and pulled handles over six weeks. That is the right room for someone who finished an intro elsewhere and keeps throwing the same small bowl.

Adult classes are open to ages 13 and up, and teens are welcome in the Saturday wheel classes. Younger children have their own track, with Mommy & Me: Animal Pinch Pots for ages 3 to 5, Kids Slab Studio for ages 5 to 11, and Intro to Nerikomi for Teens for ages 12 and older. The studio also runs a tool shop, where you can browse in person or order online for pickup, and sells its house glazes to other studios.

Membership is built for people who can work alone in a shared space. Hickory Clay asks that you can center clay and pull a basic cylinder, or build basic slab and coil forms, and glaze your own work with light guidance. Finishing the studio's intro to throwing or hand-building is enough. After two months, members can upgrade to 24-hour key access for $250 a month.

Tours for prospective members run on the first and third Saturdays of each month at 1pm, and other times can be arranged through kaitlyn@hickoryclay.com. Cancelling a membership takes seven days notice before the next billing cycle. Community nights include monthly happy hours and an annual Mug Swap, and a Made Here, By Us display sits in the middle of the studio.

The studio sits in the warehouse belt of the northeast Mission, where 16th Street runs toward Potrero Hill. A few blocks east, Franklin Square has a soccer field and a playground. Head south and east to 18th and Florida Streets to reach Heath Ceramics, whose factory and showroom sit in the same industrial pocket, which makes a fitting stop after a night of throwing.

16th St Mission BART is about six blocks west, and Muni's 22 Fillmore runs along 16th Street outside the door. Valencia Street, one block past the BART plaza, has the densest run of restaurants for a post-class dinner. Hickory Clay also runs private events and team building for up to 30 people on weekday afternoons and weekend evenings.

Hickory Clay, 2710 16th Street at Harrison, San Francisco, CA 94103. Membership $185 a month, billed $370 every two months, with 24-hour key access at $250 a month after two months. Intro to Throwing and Glazing from November 2, $375 for seven Mondays or $350 for six Tuesdays, 6:30pm. Clay from $25 per 25-pound bag. Member tours on the first and third Saturdays at 1pm. Email kaitlyn@hickoryclay.com.