He continued a successful career as a potter and went on to have regular exhibitions in Melbourne and has pieces exhibited in the National Gallery of Victoria. Gus’s work has been represented in the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Tasmanian Art Gallery, Shepparton Regional Art Gallery, University of Queensland and many private collections both in Australia and overseas.

Whilst Gus concentrated producing and exhibiting “one-off” pieces of pottery ( and during the periods of his animation) which includes the period from the ‘50’s,’60’s, 70, and 80’s, Betty, carried on exclusively with the Yarraridge Pottery business., producing the animals, decorating and firing pieces (designed by Gus in the ‘50’s/’60’s) such as bulls, horses, lions cats etc. whilst also working on her own designs supplying Potters Cottage and other galleries mainly in Victoria.

In the early 70s’s Gus and Betty purchased land in Merimbula, New South Wales and over the next few years Gus built the house, ( where she currently lives). In the early eighties Betty trained their daughter Kirsty McLaren to continue the business of producing the animals in their Warrandyte studio, she ran the business for a couple of years before leaving for London in the mid-eighties to become a photographer where she currently still lives.. Their eldest daughter, Susan, after an early career in fashion modelling, also now lives in Europe, and is following the family tradition, and has become a ceramic artist, producing highly colourful mosaic designs and ceramic sculptures. She has two children Ella and Zac, and is now a grandmother to two young boys Oliver and Luca. The boys, John, headed north to Merimbula, he took after his father in his love of creative stone-walls and landscape gardening, while youngest Tim, has settled in Melbourne with his wife Janine, and son, Liam and divides his time between his passion as a jazz musician [ guitarist] and computer programming. His computer skills and Kirsty’s design and photographic skills have been used to very good effect in producing this website!

In the early 80s, after a short break, Betty began working again in her new studio in Merimbula and resumed the full and exclusive productions of the animals as well as other work that she produces and designs, continuing to supply Potters Cottage in Warrandyte ( as before) right up until its recent close. Betty, now in her 80’s still continues to supply local galleries, as well as galleries far afield, the unique McLaren Pottery animals, which had it’s origins in the 1950’s right through to the present day.

Gus interspersed periods of animating and pottery. Betty says “It wasn’t long before Gus became fascinated with “stoneware” ceramics and we added a gas fired Stoneware kiln to the studio.” Increasingly his ceramics work, was becoming almost entirely “stoneware”, much of it taking on more of an abstract style, becoming less decorative and more sculptural in form using matt ash glazes etc.

His surfaces were becoming more rugged and textural and his life-long love of “science-fiction” was seemingly being reflected in the wonderful and fantastic shapes of his ceramic sculptures.