Dave organised for the ceramics group to spend a day in Denbighshire, north Wales to visit a few ceramic centres. The first being the Ruthin Craft Centre where we had a talk from the art director. I was particularly interested in wall pieces which were stunning but primarily to see how the pieces are held on the wall.

The image above shows that these delicate thin pieces of porcelain have been mounted onto wood and then secured to the wall which could be one way in which I mount my wall hangings.

The following are other pieces of work I found interesting.

After the Ruthin centre Dave took us to meet the Friths, a husband and wife team who have been at the Malthouse and Brookhouse pottery for the past 55 years. David and Margaret’s studio and gallery is a stunning place where they make and display there work. Their studio and kiln set up is something I could only dream of owning.

David is also a keen kiln builder with numerous kilns set in out buildings in their garden, a stunning setup.

After the Friths we went to another studio pottery, a smaller place but equally as nice. The Anvil Pottery consists of two potters who make traditional slip decorated wares at a very reasonable price.

Our next visit took us to another family run business but could not be more different than our first two visits. We went to Craig Bragdy factory. Here they make huge ceramic murals for swimming pools. Wendy Lawrence who is an ex tutor at UCLAN and also an ex-employee at Craig Bragdy gave us a tour of the factory and talked us through the process. The majority of the clients are from the middle east and is not to my liking but that in no way takes anything away from the skill and specialist technique the workers at the factory produce.