HANDBUILDING
Hickory Clay is built for serious handbuilding. While most pottery studios treat handbuilding as a side discipline to wheel throwing, our Mission District studio is set up so handbuilders have everything they need to make ambitious, distinctive work — and the space and time to do it well.\
WHY HANDBUILDERS WORK HERE
A dedicated handbuilding zone, not a corner table. We have a full handbuilding area separate from our wheel room, with its own work surfaces, mold storage, and slab equipment. You're not fighting wheel throwers for table space.
75 plaster hump molds. Squares, ovals, cones, organic shapes, large and small — one of the largest mold collections in any San Francisco pottery studio. Build a cohesive set of plates, nesting bowls, or matching trays without templating from scratch.
50+ colored slips, designed in-house. From rose and alpine pink through grass green, peacock blue, and graphite — plus white porcelain slip, B-mix slip, 1C grey, and Dragon Fruit dark brown. Mason stains and underglazes available in the tool shop for further decoration.
A 200 sq ft damp room — a feature unique among SF pottery studios — so your slab work, coiled vessels, and large-scale builds can dry at a predictable rate. Build a 24" platter over three weeks. Walk away. Come back. Your work waits for you.
Wall mounted extruder. A solid metal, workhorse extruder that we inherited from an elderly potter. It includes 25 die cut templates to use as extrusion shapes.
Custom-built work surfaces. Two 8' × 4' laminated handbuilding tables with bright recessed lighting, plus a 7' standing table by the windows for those who prefer to work upright. Plywood and gypsum work boards, Shimpo banding wheels, rubberized canvas mats, and drywall wareboards all provided.
A Shimpo slab roller for clean, uniform slabs of any thickness.
SPECIALIZED TOOLS
Beyond the molds and surfaces, our handbuilding setup includes:
Ten 8" rubber texture rollers
A full set of rubber stamps for surface decoration
High-quality decoration brushes for slip application
Sgraffito and trimming tools for surface carving
Banding wheels for symmetrical work
Rubberized canvas mats for clean slabs
If you have your own preferred tools, bring them. If you don't, we have everything you need.
Learn handbuilding at Hickory Clay
8-week Introduction to Handbuilding: Every session we offer an 8-week handbuilding class that rotates topics. This year we’ve offered Tableware, Colored Clay, and Marble/Color/Carve. Beginner-friendly, all skill levels welcome.
Friday-night one-time handbuilding classes. Mug Making Night, Planters & Plant Pots, Colored Clay: Plates & Trays, Design a Bud Vase, and Origami & Templates. Each class is 2.5 hours, beginner-friendly, ages 13+.
Studio membership. Already a handbuilder? $185/month for full access to the studio, all tools, all glazes, and the damp room. No current waitlist.
TOUR THE STUDIO
The best way to see whether Hickory Clay's handbuilding setup is right for you is to come in. We host tours for prospective members on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month at 1pm, or email kaitlyn@hickoryclay.com to coordinate another time.