[5] During the 1960s the three main production studios were established at Rorke's Drift (as it is known worldwide), and its staff continue to design and create tapestries and woven rugs, printed fabrics and stoneware ceramics to the present.
[citation needed] The Pottery Workshop started in 1968 with Danish supervisors (first Peter Tybjerg, then later Ole and Anne Nielsen) with founding throwers Gordon Mbatha, Ephraim Ziqubu, Bhekisani Manyoni and Joel Sibisi.
Already expert ceramists from the neighbouring Shiyane-Nqutu region, Dinah Molefe and several women of her family joined the Pottery Workshop from the start as skilled hand-builders, accustomed to using traditional Zulu and Sotho coiling methods in the making of domestic izinkamba (beer pots).
van der Merwe was alerted to the presence of Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and a need for assistance in its newly established Pottery Workshop.
[citation needed] In the era when apartheid policies denied a formal education to black artists and crafters, under the Directorship of Jules and Ada van de Vijver, Rorkes Drift also established a Fine Art School.