Entry No. 30 — the Butte file — filed under: hands-on
Hungry Hill Center for Art, Education & Outreach
A nonprofit clay center tucked into Uptown Butte that launched in 2022 and ties its workshops to local philanthropy, including raising tens of thousands for an Empty Bowls hunger fundraiser. Its one-time summer-to-fall workshops are the real draw: two-day raku sessions where finished pieces get pulled glowing from the kiln and smoke-fired in the open air. Beginners with zero clay experience are explicitly welcome.
The story
Pottery in Butte isn't an uptown art-school trend—it’s a blue-collar tradition that started in 1972 when local instructor Mike Kujawa Sr. set up ceramic wheels in the sub-basement of West Junior High [1.1.8]. For fifty years, between Kujawa Sr. and his son Mike Jr., practically every public school kid and night-school adult in Butte passed through their clay rooms. When community demand outgrew school basements, Hungry Hill Center for Art, Education & Outreach took shape in 2022 to give the local clay scene its own permanent, nonprofit home.
Set up in the basement of the Phoenix building at 14 South Dakota Street, Hungry Hill exists as much for hunger relief as it does for art. The studio's primary engine is throwing and glazing over 1,200 ceramic bowls a year for the Butte Emergency Food Bank's Empty Bowls event, raising tens of thousands of dollars to fund weekend backpack meals for local students. Studio members, local volunteers, and beginners work side-by-side at the wheels to hit that production quota.
If you want to get your hands dirty, skip the standard multi-week courses and look for their seasonal outdoor raku workshops, which run roughly May through November. In these two-day sessions, you shape pieces like ceramic fish or pumpkins, then watch as potters pull your glazed work glowing red out of an open kiln at 1,800 degrees to smother it in open-air combustion bins. Smoke and thermal shock leave crackled glazes and heavy carbon burns on the clay—a raw, unpredictable finish you can't get out of an electric studio oven.
What it's like
You drop down into a working basement clay studio where raw clay dust coats the surfaces and wheels line the workspace. The vibe is loose and communal—less like a polished retail gallery and more like an active union hall for potters, where first-timers sit right next to locals who've been throwing clay since the junior high sub-basement days. If you take a raku workshop, you'll spend part of the time outside in the open air dealing with live heat and smoke; wear natural fibers you don't mind smelling like a woodstove. The real catch is availability: summer and fall one-off workshops sell out fast, and hours vary, so register online well before you roll into Uptown Butte.
The move: Sign up for a two-day raku workshop and watch your pots come out crackled and smoke-blackened from the open-flame firing.
📍 Before you go One-time workshops run roughly May through November and fill up; multi-week courses span about 8 weeks. Register online in advance.
- 📍 Butte, MT
- 💸 $$
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 14 South Dakota Street, Butte, MT 59701
Hours: Added 2026-06-24 — confirm current hours before you go.
⚠ Seasonal or scheduled — always check before you go.
Pair it with
- Headframe Spirits Tasting Room — Walk a block down after pulling hot clay out of the kiln to trade heat and smoke for cocktails poured from hand-built continuous-flow stills.
- Mai Wah Museum — Pair your time at the pottery wheel with a walk around the corner to explore Butte's historic Chinatown inside an authentic 1899 mercantile building.
- 51 Below Speakeasy — Keep the underground theme going by knocking on a basement door beneath The Miner's Hotel for a drink after your clay session.
- Piccadilly Transportation Memorabilia Museum — Steps away in Uptown Butte, trade hand-built ceramics for a quarter-century's worth of global license plates and highway signs.
Good to know
Do I need prior pottery experience to take a workshop?
No. Beginners with zero clay experience are explicitly welcome in the single-day and two-day workshops, where instructors walk you through basic hand-building or wheel techniques.
When do the two-day raku workshops run?
One-time seasonal workshops, including open-air raku firings, run roughly from May through November. Multi-week courses span about 8 weeks.
How does the studio support the local community?
Hungry Hill operates as a philanthropic nonprofit whose main mission is making over 1,000 ceramic bowls annually for the Butte Emergency Food Bank's Empty Bowls fundraiser to fight local childhood food insecurity.
Can I walk in, or do I need to book in advance?
You should register online in advance. Workshops fill up quickly, and because operating hours can fluctuate, advance booking ensures a spot at the wheel.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Official site · kxlf.com · guidestar.org
last checked: 2026-06-24