Alexandra Pottery Club chairwoman Kathi McLean gives a sneak preview of some of the pieces she will display at an exhibition which coincides with 50 years since the club began.
She said the club had been asked by Central Stories Museum and Art Gallery to produce an exhibition and it was not until she went back through old minute books, looking for history, that she discovered the club was formed after a basic pottery skills workshop was held in 1964.
By November of that year, the club had built its first diesel kiln and within six years, it had become so big it had to be split in two so everyone could access the kiln.
By 1987 it had raised $17,500, including a $6000 donation from Barbara Henderson, for a new building.
Over its 50 years the club, which was re-formed last year after four years of recess, had been housed in seven different venues.
It is now housed in the Alexandra Community House and has five members but Mrs McLean hoped to attract new members through a series of workshops she will be holding from mid-February.
The ''Form and Fantasy'' exhibition, in Central Stories' Russell Henderson Gallery and Gillian Grant Room, opens on Wednesday. Sixteen ceramic artists from Otago will be featured.
