MudFire

Category: Studio Also called: MudFire Pottery Studio and Gallery; Mudfire Studio and Gallery; MudFire Inc Last checked: 2026-09-22

What it is

MudFire is a community pottery studio and gallery in Decatur, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. The homepage describes it as a community studio dedicated to the practice of creativity and an open-studio playground for adults, with an on-site gallery of member, artist-in-residence, and visiting ceramic work (mostly functional ware, plus some décor). FAQ: founded in 2001 by Luba Sharapan and Erik Haagensen; Deklan and Daphne took over in 2013 and are the studio owners named on the About and FAQ pages. It is a cone 6 studio with electric, gas, soda, and raku firing, in-house glazes, and clay sold on site. It is not a membership guild and not a clay manufacturer. Do not confuse it with Mudflat Studio in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Who it’s for

Adults booking a one-time beginner or advanced class (date nights, handbuilding, wheel) without a membership; people joining the studio-membership waitlist (beginners through people selling work); and ceramicists applying to the artist-in-residence staff track. Membership copy: no kids under 16 during member work time; dates, birthday parties, and summer camp are the kid tracks. Members must buy clay at MudFire — outside clay and glazes are generally not allowed.

Why it’s listed

This is a first-party Decatur teaching / open-studio site with a printed Laredo Drive address, a homepage hours widget, live membership dollar figures, date-night starting price, firing rules, and a fall Thursday class list — not a scraped directory card.

• Address and phone (homepage Location & Hours widget — checked 2026-09-22): Mudfire Studio and Gallery, 175 Laredo Drive, Decatur, Georgia 30030, (404) 377-8033. Same widget hours: Monday–Saturday 09:00 am–05:00 pm; Sunday Closed. FAQ repeats Mon–Sat 9:00am–5:00pm and Sunday closed, and also prints the line “Location & Hours - Open Tuesday by class appointment only.” Homepage and membership copy separately say the studio is open 57 hours a week (membership: “57 hours a week of access,” with a brief holiday close). Those two hour statements are both on the site; use the live pages before treating either as the only schedule.
• Membership (memberships page — checked today): waitlist; one-time classes can be booked without a membership. Billing sentence on that page: $99 for the Trial Month and $170 per month after that. All equipment, glazes, and bisque firings included. Glaze firings included at 2500 cubic inches per month; “overages and soda firing at .02 per cubic inch.” Personal on-site storage. Two or more resident artists on duty for lessons without a separate appointment. Generally no outside materials. The shop product “Trial Month” (/product/trial-month/33) instead prints that the membership rate after the first 30 days is $155 per month. The $170 and $155 after-trial figures disagree across those two official pages — confirm the live membership page and the Trial Month product before paying.
• Date nights (/date-nights — checked today): one-time classes led by MudFire potters, booked on two platforms. Beginner and advanced classes start at $65 per person. Cashless. Typical visit about 2 hours (about 90 minutes on the wheel for many first-timers), 2–3 pieces, glaze chosen from 60+ in-house glazes. Tracks named on the page include Beginner’s Wheel, Handbuilding 101, Mugs 101, Wheel 102, ADV Wheel with Niki, and seasonal spooky classes. Gift cards can apply to membership, classes, gallery items, and supplies.
• Member Thursday classes (/mf-classes — checked today): members only, 7pm. The page still lists the fall series, including dates already past on this check (Thu Sep 3, 10, 17, 24) and later dates: Oct 8, 15, 22, 29; Nov 5, 12; Dec 3, 10. Topics printed there include soda/gas 101, ornaments, a three-part glaze project, wheel 101, a potluck, surface, and matching sets.
• Kilns (FAQ — checked today): 6 electric kilns (2 bisque, 3 glaze, 1 special/rental/commission), cone 6 with a cooling cycle. Most weeks 14+ electric loads. Turnaround 2–14 days. Gas is a Bailey car kiln, members only, no shelf rentals, typically a 6–10 week cycle; the entire gas kiln can be rented and fired by the studio for $1100. Soda kiln (not rented out; members and residents): FAQ prints .06 per cubic inch — a different soda figure than the .02 on the memberships page. Raku is member-organized, not on a guaranteed schedule, not rented. FAQ also says the studio maintains 70+ glazes and makes 80+ from scratch on the memberships page; date-nights says 60+ for class glaze choice. Counts vary by page.
• Residency (/artist-residency-programs — checked today): artists in residence get 24/7 studio access and a larger firing allowance (5000 cubic inches glaze; bisque included) in exchange for 8 hours a week. Shifts are paid. Date-night teaching is a 50/50 split plus tips; page says average pay $25–48 per hour. Apply by message with name, Instagram, and why you want to join. Experience required; a college ceramics degree is not required.
• Clay (/clays-at-mudfire — checked today): members must purchase clay at MudFire. Using outside materials “will result in the cancellation of your membership.”

Hours, the $99 / $170 vs $155 membership figures, the $65 class floor, the $1100 gas-kiln rental, and the .02 vs .06 soda rates are what those official pages showed on the check date. Seats, waitlist, and prices change. Use the live membership, date-night, FAQ, and class pages before treating any figure as fixed.

Official URL

https://www.mudfire.com/

Memberships: https://www.mudfire.com/memberships

Date nights: https://www.mudfire.com/date-nights

Member Thursday classes: https://www.mudfire.com/mf-classes

FAQ: https://www.mudfire.com/faq

Clays: https://www.mudfire.com/clays-at-mudfire

Artist residency: https://www.mudfire.com/artist-residency-programs

About: https://www.mudfire.com/about

Location

MudFire / Mudfire Studio and Gallery — 175 Laredo Drive, Decatur, GA 30030. Phone (404) 377-8033. Homepage hours widget: Monday–Saturday 9:00 am–5:00 pm; Sunday closed. Email printed on the cart/shipping help text: info@mudfire.com.

This is a class, membership open-studio, gallery, and residency address. It is not a guild HQ and not a clay factory.

Notes

• Category is Studio. Community class and open studio with a gallery and a secondary tool/clay shop. Not a guild and not a clay manufacturer.
• Distinct from Mudflat Studio (Somerville, MA), already listed. Keep separate from Lapidary / Mahjong / Bee / Bonsai directories.
• Homepage hours (Mon–Sat 9–5, Sun closed) and the “57 hours a week” membership line were both printed on 2026-09-22. Membership after-trial price was $170 on /memberships and $155 on the Trial Month product. Soda was .02/cu in on the memberships page and .06/cu in on the FAQ. Do not collapse those conflicts.
• Not affiliated with Clay Plaza.
• No Clay Plaza contact, purchase, booking, or publication action was taken.
• First-party logo saved beside this listing as mudfire.png (MudFire wordmark from the mudfire.com site logo file).

FAQ

Q: Can I take a class without a membership?
A: Yes. Date nights (checked 2026-09-22): one-time beginner and advanced classes start at $65 per person, cashless, about two hours, glaze from the in-house palette. Memberships page: the studio is on a membership waitlist, and one-time classes are the way to use the studio without being a member. Book on the live date-night page.

Q: What does membership cost, and is it open?
A: Memberships page (checked 2026-09-22): waitlist; billed monthly at $99 for the Trial Month and $170 per month after that, including equipment, glazes, bisque, and 2500 cubic inches of glaze firing per month. The Trial Month shop product instead says the rate after the first 30 days is $155 per month. Confirm both pages before paying. Outside clay is not allowed.

Q: Where is it, and when is the door open?
A: Homepage Location & Hours: 175 Laredo Drive, Decatur, Georgia 30030, (404) 377-8033. Widget hours Monday–Saturday 9:00 am–5:00 pm, Sunday closed. Membership copy also says 57 hours a week of access. FAQ adds the line “Open Tuesday by class appointment only” next to the same Mon–Sat list. Check the live homepage before a visit.