A MURAL which was first created in 1988 has been given a new lease of life and location.
The Pathway of the Pioneers, created by the late Florence Brook and Beaudesert Potters group now adorns a wall of The Centre Beaudesert building in Short Street.
Ms Brook designed the mural to capture the early history of the timber and agriculture industries in the region.
It was created using half a tonne of Raku clay and 1,000 hours of work by more than 20 members of the Beaudesert Potters group.
Beaudesert Potters Founding President Hilary Rains was pleased to see the mural receiving this recognition, especially in the group’s 50th anniversary year.
“This was given to the citizens of Beaudesert as a gift and it’s finally being recognised as a beautiful mural, because that’s what it is,” she said.
“I feel very proud for the potters’ group and I think it’s a feather in our caps.”
Hilary recalled the process of creating the mural, particularly the technique used to flatten out the clay.
“If you go down and have a look, you can see everyone’s feet when we were stamping out the clay,” she said.
“Imagine a whole big ton of clay – we couldn’t roll it, so we had to stamp it out to flatten it out to start with.”
Cr Jennifer Sanders and Cr Kerri Cryer attended the unveiling of the mural and Cr Sanders said the new lighting will allow locals and visitors to enjoy it by day and night.
SRRC Cultural Projects Officer Mark Paddick recommended lighting the mural and also wrote a storyboard which now accompanies the piece.
“I owe him a lot of thanks for lighting up the mural and putting the storyboard there,” Hilary said.
“I also thank the council for agreeing to that and for the cost of lighting.”
