I am constantly being surprised by the number of large and successful pottery enterprises that operated in Australia in the late 20th century. This clock from our collection was made by the Cronulla Pottery set up by Geoff Walker and Paul Bruce on the Gold Coast in the early 1980s, first in Cronulla Avenue, Mermaid Beach, then in Burleigh Gardens. By 1996, the retail end of the business was turning over a million dollars a year. The jewel in the crown was Earthworks, a shop in the Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne. The bubble burst in the early 2000s, with the reduction of import tarrifs finally forcing the company into liquidation in 2003. A detailed history of the pottery can be found in Geoff Walker’s ‘My Clay Journey’ in the October 2011 issue of the Gold Coast Potter’s monthly newsletter.
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