Vallejo Clay offers fun classes and a community hub

VALLEJO — Thriving as a fulltime, independent artist is not an easy feat, but professional potter Whitney Smith has pulled it off for over two decades. 

Smith had her own studio in Oakland for 23 years and sold her wares nationally and internationally, first in fine art shows, and later online, via Etsy and her own website. At one point she started working with a manufacturer to produce and sell her pottery at scale.

Her work was featured in prestigious home and design magazines, including Martha Stewart, Sunset Magazine, Bon Appétit, and many more. 

In 2019, Smith and her husband moved to Vallejo and she opened a studio on Marin Street. “People started coming in and asking for classes all the time, so I started teaching one class on the side while I was doing my regular work,” Smith said. “Over the course of a couple of years the demand grew to the point that I had to rent a separate space to teach next door.”

That’s how Vallejo Clay Workshop was born in 2023. In August 2025, Smith moved her business to a bigger space at 306 Georgia St., which it currently occupies.

Vallejo Clay offers a variety of classes and workshops for all skill levels. The one-time classes range from $50 to $90 and include a wheel throwing class, the very popular mug-making class and a Sip and Make Pottery Night. There are also private lessons for two available.

For people who want a deep dive, the six-week sessions for either hand building or wheel throwing will scratch that itch. There are also workshops available some weekends to learn a specific technique. On April 25 and 26, for example, Berkeley ceramic artist Josie Jurczenia will teach how to transform a basic cylinder shape into a unique sculptural vessel.

“The workshops offer well known instructors who come in and teach techniques,” Smith said. “It's a way to boost people's skills and learn something new, and not have to go to San Francisco or Oakland to work with people like that.”

Smith also offers a Kids Clay Camp for five weeks during the summer and plans to launch programming for kids and teens during the school year as well. “I’m always trying to come up with new classes and fun things to do, to keep it interesting,” she said. 

Transitioning from being a fulltime artist to a fulltime teacher wasn’t easy. “I had to learn how to teach and how to do a lot of stuff with pottery that I’d never done before,” Smith said. 

She had been throwing on the wheel for 30 years, but to teach a wheel throwing class you need a lot of wheels and each wheel costs $1,500, so when Smith launched Vallejo Clay she focused most of her classes on hand building. 

“I knew the technical part of it, but I wasn’t practiced, so I had to learn how to do that,” Smith said. “And now I’m completely obsessed with hand building. I don’t even want to throw on the wheel anymore.”

Focusing on teaching also meant that she couldn’t have a flexible schedule or travel three months out of the year, as she used to. She also went from being alone all day, working on her own projects, to being constantly surrounded by people and focused on their projects. 

“If you told me five or six years ago that I was going to be doing this, I would have been like, ‘No way,’ but I feel it’s worth it,” Smith said. “I made pottery and sold it for 25 years, and, as it turns out, it's okay to change career paths and do something different.” 

It helps that she loves running a business. “To me, it's like a puzzle that you're putting together all the time,” she said. “You're trying to figure out how to make it work.”

She had support during this transition. Her operations manager, Sarah Kagan-Real, is an efficient planner who helps execute Smith’s ideas and also teaches some classes. Smith also has a longtime mentor, ceramic artist Roger Yee, founder of Red Ox Clay Studio in Concord. 

“He downloaded information to me, like forms you need to have students sign before a six-week class, community standards, things like that,” Smith said.

A challenge she has encountered is recruiting teachers. “Most of the talent is in the East Bay, Oakland and further south, so getting people to come up this way is hard,” she said. Once she has filled up her roster of teachers, Smith envisions teaching only specialty classes and workshops, so she can recover the flexible schedule she used to have.

The upper floor of Vallejo Clay is open for private team building events or parties and can hold up to 18 people. Smith also has a studio space for herself on the upper floor and, when she has time, she makes her own pieces. But otherwise she’s fully focused on teaching and making Vallejo Clay Workshop thrive.

In a short time, Smith has created a warm environment and a community hub. Students who are in the six-week session do all their firing and glazing in the studio and have access to the facility during the studio’s open hours. 

They can also opt to become members. There are three membership tiers, some providing not only access to the space and a shelf for their work, but even a key to the studio to come and go as they please. 

Members or not, you will always find some people working on their projects at Vallejo Clay, even when there isn’t a class running.

“I'm really proud of the people who come here,” Smith said. “Sometimes studios can be a little clicky, but I feel like we have a great community, and people really like each other. They're always interested to see what other people are doing. They support each other. ”

On April 10, Vallejo Clay will have its first ever exhibition called Unearthed Offerings. It will feature the work of two students, Erin Fitgerald and Selena Wells, who, according to Smith, do incredible work. The opening reception will be April 10 from 5 to 8 p.m. and the exhibit will be open only for a week.