Craft worker dies
Former vice president of the Ettalong Business and Professional Club Ms Joan Matthews has died.
Ms Matthews was renowned for her hard work during the 1960s and 1970s to promote and work for the establishment of the Potter's Society and Handweavers and Spinners Guild.
She was formerlly the Tutor Sister at Gosford District Hospital until she retired in 1967.
Ms Matthews was responsible for starting the first gallery in Mann St, Gosford, with Ms Ursula Giese before starting Girraween Craft Studio in Narara a short time later.
She also instigated the Old Sydney Town Craft Studio in Somersby running it as the Girraween Craft Studio in the late 1970s.
It then became Studio 20, a cooperative which functioned until the closure of Old Sydney Town in 2003.
Ms Matthews donated her international collection of pots to the Potters' Society and also some of her handicrafts to the Handweavers and Spinners' Guild.
She also played a major part in organising the 150th celebration of the founding of Gosford during the time she was vice president of the Ettalong Business and Professional Club with Wyong, Gosford and Ettalong clubs also taking part.
Ms Matthews featured in the first book Significant Women of the Central Coast.
Newsletter, 10 Aug 2010
Margaret Hardy, Central Coast Multi Arts Confederation