Catherine Vincent, MA Ceramics Candidate

Lifecycles: Pillars of Growth

My ceramic work is a direct reflection of my loss and trauma, and my deliberate choice to manifest beauty out of grief. My life has been marked by loss: my father died suddenly in 1999 when I was 15 years old. My mother died of sepsis in 2016 after an abrupt illness. In 2018, my 40 year old big brother was diagnosed with a rare heart condition and died two months later. In 2025, my 15 year old bonus-son was diagnosed with stage 3 Burkitt Lymphoma, and thankfully he was cured in 3 months after surviving chemo Hell. Living under a seemingly constant shadow of grief, loss, and growth for most of my life influences my ceramic work.

I create functional and sculptural gardenware exploring themes of life, growth, death, rebirth, and decay. I am a life-long gardener; I see a garden as a metaphor for the human experience and existence itself. Every garden has both flowers and wilted dead heads, and one cannot harvest seeds without first letting the blooms shrivel. Life does not flourish without death preceding it. I sculpt and glaze human skulls adorned with seasonal growth and flowers to illustrate this balance of mortality. Seasonal plants and flowers are a consistent theme in both my pottery and sculpture, encouraging us to grow, blossom, and thrive before our season ends. 

My Garden Guardian sculptures take various forms, including female human busts (Gaias), garden insects, animals, and pollinators covered in seasonal flowers and growth, reminding us of our connection to nature and all life on Earth. My Gaia sculptures are functional portrait busts representing the four seasons and the specific growth and decay found within each, presented as an aging allegorical female figure. Spring is a child, Summer is a young adult, Autumn is decaying, and Winter is a skull. Each Gaia demonstrates that their season of life has its own beauty, growth, and inevitable end.