
Gathered Shadows
Here & Now: Gold Coast triennial 2024 hota (home of the arts)
30 September 2024 – 16 february 2025
In Gathered Shadows Larissa Warren transcends decorative ceramics, creating vessels that weave together time, personal history and place. Warren uncovers and collects layers of earth, embedding unique structures into her work using organic textures, patterns, wild clays, and stained porcelains. The clay for each pair of vessels has been unearthed from one of twelve Gold Coast locations — mainly educational campuses. Each nestled pair features a coloured porcelain vessel, echoing Warren’s vibrant Gold Coast upbringing during the 1980s and 1990s, ‘shadowed’ by a local clay vessel that geologically represents an earlier form of time and place. The pairings tell the story of the Gold Coast’s unique geology, merging personal history with the natural world.
Makers Blog:
Research and clay gathering began in December 2023. This has been written for my fellow clay and rock fans, adventurers, educators and anyone who likes a background story. Enjoy!
UPPER COOMERA #1 Gathered Shadows- From 2004 to 2018 I taught Secondary Art at Coomera Anglican College. I have been teaching a few supply days here and there since. Last year, our Art department was sadly demolished to make way for a new multi-storey building. With the support of my fellow art teachers and the principal we were able to source a pure and uncontaminated clay from the dug away basement level from this construction site. This was one of my first Gold Coast clays to test and work with. I had only previously worked with mountain clays (typically known as primary clays- high firing and not very plastic). Primary clays are also known to be ‘short’ as they lack the plasticity of secondary clays that are more commonly found in valleys and areas that have experienced erosion and cumulative earth developments. We sourced 2 different clays from the campus. Both showed to be very plastic and happily fired to 1220oC. In order to make the clay body stronger, I created a grog (crushed low fired clay) from itself and wedged this back into the clay. The final pieces were fired in reduction – a firing that can only be done in a gas kiln.
COOMERA RIVERS #2 Gathered Shadows- I visited Coomera Rivers State School at the start of the year. The groundskeeper joined myself and the art teacher and we found this terracotta clay on the campus outskirts pretty quickly. It’s a very sticky clay that didn’t want to settle once processed. In order for the clay to ‘let go’ of the water I purchased some Epsom salts from the chemist and sprinkled these in the slip bucket. Magic salts more like it 🥳, the clay sank to the bottom of the bucket and I was able to pour the excess water away and get started. The clay threw really well and happily fired to (1220°c) cone 6. I really love working with pink in my artworks, it balances so well with greens and blues. The local terracotta did not like being blended into the porcelain vessel- and I had to make and fire this form several times due to cracking. Kirsten Farr @kirstinnf beautifully kintsugi repaired a break in this last attempt- which helps tell the story of a clay that refused to play nice.
UPPER COOMERA #3 Gathered Shadows- This clay was collected from Coomera Anglican College on a different day and was pleasantly stumbled upon in one of the gardens near the Manual Arts block. It’s a completely different clay found previously under the old Art department, which proves the wonderful geological wonders of how one location can hold such a variety of rich minerals. Originally this grouping wasn’t going into the exhibition, as I had hoped it would go into the Stanthorpe Art prize. Rejected, it was embraced by my curator at HoTA, who thought the triple would fit well within the other paired vessels. I needed to redesign the shadow pot (sketching in my journal) and another tower was made from the raw clay to mirror the pink towers. The tiny spotty bits in the pink vessels are coloured porcelain grog- that I wedged back into the main clay body. This trio really took to the drastic shadowed light I had hoped for in the show.
WONGAWALLAN / TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN #4 Gathered Shadows. The boundaries between the Gold Coast and Scenic Rim shires bend back and forth here on Tamborine Mountain. This clay was discovered on a walking track on the eastern escarpment only a few minutes from my Tamborine Mt home, 520m above sea level. I knew I had walked into GCCC as there are old tracks off the mountain, used back in the 60s when there were far fewer roads to travel down to the coast. Now private they are far too hairy for me to try out! The clay found here are primary clays- deposited ash from Mt Warning volcano 200 million years ago. Rich in kaolin they are creamy and behave similar to porcelain when throwing on the wheel. The orange stain is a favourite (blended with small amounts of yellow and pink) from @chrysanthoscolor fired to 1280°c / cone 10 oxidized.
CEDAR CREEK #5 Gathered Shadows- Cedar Creek is an area split between City of Gold Coast and Logan City. It’s located in the northern valley below Tamborine Mountain and has a small population of approximately 900 people living there. This clay was located near a friend’s farm after our last summer storm season. The clay is very plastic in nature and is made up of a collection of eroded rocks and minerals deposited from water carried down the mountain along with millions of years of erosion. Test tiles didn’t predict the overall and significant shrinkage I would experience with this clay once fired (almost 30%). I needed to remake the shadow pot a lot bigger and do some shrinkage maths to ensure the partnered pots’ complimentary angles would align. You can see the unfired shadow pot in the first image – a lot taller than the fired porcelain one. The next image (in exhibition) shows the pot fired and now the same height.
NUMINBAH VALLEY #6 Gathered Shadows- Numinbah Valley State School was established in 1927 with a current enrolment of 10 students. Situated in the Gold Coast Hinterland, nestled on the banks of the Nerang River in Numinbah Valley, shadowed by Springbrook, Beechmont and Mt Warning. It is one of those breathtaking places that easily could induce you to relocate. I couldn’t find clay on the school premises, however, a few metres down the road this plastic secondary clay was plentiful. So plastic, it took weeks to settle during processing. I fired this clay to its limit; you can see it has started to self-glaze- I fell in love with its lustre in cone 6 reduction. With no additional grog added for strength the pot split open in firing which accurately records how my practise with wild clays can often go.. always problem solving. My potter friend Kristin Farr kindly repaired the ‘Harry Potter’ like scar with traditional Japanese lacquer and gold (kintsugi). This was the first time I had worked with yellow stain in such an intense way. People seem to react instantly to it- love or hate (it took me some time to admire its boldness). Luckily the Numinbah Valley clay was happy to be embedded into the nerikomi pattern within the porcelain vessel, as time was running away from me at this point.
Projects

Wild Women, Wild Clay
With each step you take on life's shifting ground, put your foot squarely down on your own heart.1939 South East Qld potters were encouraged to share their clay with other women potters in more remote areas of Australia, including S.A. and Alice Springs.Each clay has...