David and Margaret Frith set up their first workshop in 1963. Their reputations are well established. David with his mastery of the potter's wheel makes majestic pieces decorated with his personal style of waxed motifs under heavy reduction overglazes and glaze trailing. Margaret concentrates on individual porcelain with carved decoration or coloured glazes as well as producing a comprehensive range of domesticware and decorative stoneware.
Both are Fellows of the Craft Potters Association and David is a selected member of the Crafts Council. They both have work in many private and public collections and exhibit widely in the UK and abroad. David has lectured overseas and given workshops in Europe, Africa and New Zealand. Each year three fortnightly workshops are held at the pottery where students can enjoy intensive tuition in delightful surroundings.
The pottery is housed in an 18th. century woollen mill which was later used as a brewery hence the name The Malt House. The mill is situated on the banks of the river Ystrad, on the outskirts of the market town of Denbigh, in the beautiful Vale of Clwyd in North Wales.
Although the mill never had a water wheel it is built on the banks of the river affording a riverside workshop and showroom. It has a bridge joining the main workshops to the slip house, clay storage and kiln sheds in the garden on the opposite bank.
The art of reduction fired stoneware and porcelain came from the Orient and reached its height in the Sung to Ming Dynasties in China. Bernard Leach, born 1887, the father of the British Studio movement united the aesthetics of East and West and along with his student, Michael Cardew, his son David and others, started a tradition of high fired ceramics in this country.
Although emphasis and ideology change, the tradition remains strong and its development is apparent in the Frith’s workshop where the search for the finest quality high-fired glazes involves refining and grinding the minerals and ball-milling the glazes for several hours. Emanating from this research ideas are born, giving their work its own identity and character and where intuitiveness and expressiveness plays an important role to find a depth of feeling that goes beyond mere technique.
