Holding Grief
Julia Paterson
Stoneware, glaze
(Left to right) Delmer (7″x 18″), Larry (6.5″x 14″), Kim (4.75″x 14″), Jamie (6″x 14″), Alice-Anne (6.75″x 15.5″)
2026
Holding Grief is a series of coil built vessels each honouring a deceased family member killed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a hereditary disease which runs in our family. The vessels were made to hold the memory and space of each person, with motifs of their personalities, individual vibes, and what they meant to me. Though it’s impossible to contain the essence of a whole person in a visual capacity, this project is an effort to honour them, and as a way to work through the grief I carry, hoping that I can entrust? relinquish? imbue? *hold* some of that grief in the clay body rather than my own.
Untitled
Untitled
Woven mono-type (left 19″x 19″, right 25″x 19″)
2025
This project explores the degradation of memories through the act of remembering, and the futile effort of trying to maintain and hold onto the people, places, and emotions of those memories. To create these works, I used a process of tracing and re-tracing photographs many times to make multiple mono-types. I wanted to create visual interference mimicking the inevitable degradation of our memories as we struggle to keep them close, first through the printing process, obscuring the images with scratches, splatters, wiping, painting, and smudging, and then secondly through cutting and weaving. I also wanted to use as many ‘ghost’ prints as possible for this project, as both the name of the technique and literal process of repeatedly printing from the same plate -while each subsequent print degrades- felt reflective of the haunting nature of memories. The weaving of the prints is also meant to represent how the people and places in our memories make us who we are (our fabric so to speak), and our efforts to hold onto them through photographs, memories and stories, the unfinished edges and overall precarity a reflection of the inevitable loss of them over time.
Stunted Growth
Stoneware, glaze, soil, houseplant cuttings
9.5″x 18.5″ (left), 8″ x 23″ (middle), 9.5″x 19″ (right)
2025
Stunted Growth is a kind of tongue-in-cheek critique of the practice of growing house plants – a hobby that I very much participate in.
This work seeks to draw attention to how tropical plants are taken out of their natural habitat and kept in a perpetually juvenile state, usually under the guise of care, to serve as decor and for mental or physical health. The juxtaposition of the large vessels and the comically small plants is meant to look ridiculous and somewhat absurd.
Material Explorations
![is feeling still feeling when time stops? [00:50:04] by Keeyan Suazo](https://2026.theshow-ecuad.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/IMG_9857-cropped-2-300x140.jpg)
