A conversation with Carolina Grampin
Ceramic artist, creative explorer
How a life-changing accident, a grandmother’s advice, and a move from Uruguay to Portugal helped Carolina Grampin rediscover her creative voice—and learn to trust herself along the way.
“I think that for me it’s important to respect myself and to hear me more.”
Watch the Conversation
About this conversation
Carolina Grampin had a good life in Uruguay.
She had a home, close friends and family, and a successful career in communications. She’d spent 16 years with the same organization. Her life was comfortable, familiar, and settled.
But something was beginning to change.
In 2018, a serious accident left Carolina with a broken back. She spent months in bed, learning to walk again. During her recovery, she set herself two goals: to travel again and to return to ceramics.
She accomplished both.
Then came the pandemic, long workdays, and a growing sense that the life she’d worked so hard to build was leaving little room for the things that mattered most to her.
A conversation with her grandmother helped bring that realization into focus.
“You have to live your life. If you want to go and have an experience, you have to do it. It’s your life. It’s just one.”
Her grandmother died later that year. Carolina has carried those words with her ever since.
What followed wasn’t a carefully mapped-out reinvention.
There was an unexpected opportunity to return to Porto, five months of living somewhere she knew almost no one, and the discovery that she could feel genuinely happy with far less than she’d been accustomed to having.
Eventually, Carolina made a much bigger decision: to leave behind the security of her established career and pursue a master’s degree in art, despite having no formal artistic background.
It wasn’t easy.
She found herself surrounded by younger students with years of art education. She questioned whether she belonged. She continued working for her employer in Uruguay while studying, sometimes feeling as though she’d simply transported her old life to a different country.
But slowly, something shifted.
Carolina began to recognize that the experiences she’d once considered unrelated to art were part of what made her perspective valuable. She found the confidence to approach her work in her own way. And she began building a life in which creativity wasn’t something she squeezed into the margins.
Today, ceramics is central to that life.
Carolina talks about working with clay as a way of quieting her mind, discovering her own voice, and learning lessons that extend far beyond the studio.
Clay, she explains, doesn’t respond well to force. It requires patience, attention, and a willingness to accept that things won’t always turn out as expected.
In some ways, so does life.
It’s a conversation about finding the courage to change direction, discovering what matters through experience, and learning to listen to the voice that may have been there all along.
In this conversation we explore
How a serious accident changed Carolina’s relationship with her body, her priorities, and her future
The advice from her grandmother that helped give her the courage to pursue a different life
Why she began questioning a successful, comfortable career in Uruguay
The unexpected circumstances that brought her back to Porto
Discovering that a simpler life could bring a deeper sense of happiness
Finding the courage to pursue art without a traditional artistic background
What rejection, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome taught her about what she really wanted
Why moving to another country doesn’t automatically mean leaving your old patterns behind
How ceramics has become both a creative practice and a way of understanding herself
Learning to release control, embrace uncertainty, and trust her own voice
Memorable moments
“You have to live your life. If you want to go and have an experience, you have to do it. It’s your life. It’s just one.”
— Carolina recalling her grandmother’s advice
“I was just enjoying the time.”
“Sometimes you don’t hear, well, you don’t hear your voice.”
“I think that was the moment that I realized that I really want to get in and I really want to do this.”
“I want to do something that represents me.”
“Just to listen what my hands want to say.”
“You have to release and to flow a bit more.”
“The clay has memory.”
“I think that for me it’s important to respect myself and to hear me more.”
Reflection
There’s a moment in Carolina’s story that I keep coming back to.
She had applied to a master’s program in art in Portugal, despite having no formal background in the field. There were twelve places available.
She finished thirteenth.
Devastated, she got on her bicycle and rode toward the beach, crying as she went.
And somewhere along that ride, she stopped and asked herself a question.
Why was she so upset?
Until then, pursuing art had been something she wanted to explore. Something she thought might be interesting. Something she could try.
But her reaction to being rejected revealed something she hadn’t fully acknowledged.
She didn’t just want to try. She wanted this life.
That realization changed things.
When a place unexpectedly opened in the program, Carolina accepted it. And the possibility she’d been imagining suddenly became a decision she had to live.
I think there’s something important in that distinction.
We often imagine that clarity comes first. That we need to know exactly what we want, understand how we’ll get there, and feel confident in our decision before we begin.
But Carolina’s experience suggests another possibility.
Sometimes we discover what matters most by paying attention to how we respond to what happens along the way.
The disappointment that surprises us.
The opportunity we can’t quite bring ourselves to decline.
The activity that makes us lose track of time.
The quiet satisfaction of living with less.
Carolina’s journey has been shaped by all of these things.
And what’s particularly interesting is that her transformation didn’t happen simply because she moved to Portugal.
For a while, she was still working the same long hours, carrying the same responsibilities, and struggling with the same expectations she’d brought from Uruguay.
She had changed her surroundings, but much of her life remained the same.
The deeper change came as she began giving herself permission to make different choices.
To pursue art seriously.
To recognize the value of her own experience.
To stop measuring herself against people who had taken a different path.
And perhaps most importantly, to listen to herself.
Near the end of our conversation, Carolina describes what ceramics has taught her.
Clay has memory, she explains. If you push it too hard, the effects can appear later. You have to work with the material rather than trying to force it into submission.
You have to be patient.
You have to accept that the finished piece may not look the way you imagined.
And sometimes, you have to let it go.
It’s a beautiful way of thinking about the life Carolina is creating.
After years of working hard, pushing forward, and meeting expectations, she’s discovering what becomes possible when she allows herself to work differently.
Not without effort or ambition.
But with more curiosity, more patience, and more trust in her own instincts.
Her grandmother’s advice was to live her life.
It seems Carolina is learning what that means for her.
And perhaps that’s the most interesting part of her story.
Not that she moved to Portugal, earned a master’s degree, or became an artist.
But that, through all of it, she’s becoming more willing to hear—and follow—her own voice.
A question to consider
What part of yourself have you been putting aside—and what might change if you started listening to it?
