If she is familiar with Blossfeldt's epochal Art Forms in Nature, she may be a student of Ernst Haeckel's similarly titled investigation of the quasi-geometric, quasi-organic microbial univeral, or of the "wonder cabinet" juxtaposition of nature with art that spawned the visions of illustrators like Albertus Seba, Maria Sibylla Merian, and, more recently, Leo Lionni's arresting Parallel Botany. Lionni's hybrid plant forms sometimes demonstrate something of the quality of a nightmare. Gouthro's are more dreamlike in conception, and even their thorns and other occasional sharp edges are more likely to produce shudders of whimsy (erotic or otherwise) than outright menace. These are not the carnivorous plants through which the erotic "Venus" of nature traps and digests her animal prey. Instead, Gouthro is a self-described "optimist" (Gouthro 1) who takes deliberate care to balance the "edgy" elements in her garden by incorporating fairy-tale associations into her pieces:

I often include found-object components that have strong nostalgic childhood associations for me, e.g. The swan, the toy jack, the little bird from Snow White, a jello mold. These are very benign, safe, warm associations that speak to memory and they balance some of the more edgy, menacing, sharp and thorny parts of the work.

These incorporations often become part of the "architectural" elements of her sculpture. The balls and prongs of the "toy jack," for example, emerge as the spine of Floris 1, while the "jello mold" plays a recurring role as a base. In this way, childhood literally grounds what could otherwise become a monstrous apprehension of "Nature, red in tooth and claw."

Regardless of these imbedded iconographic concerns, Gouthro is ultimately more concerned with surface than in symbol, and it is in the surfaces that her work demonstrates both immediate charm and technical achievement the various "organs" of her fantastic...

She is a specialist in advanced glazing and other ceramic coloring techniques, and in fact her notes on surface design have been incorporated into the American Ceramics Society's textbook on that subject (Turner 125-127). Texture and color commingle in her process; she is most famous in the field for using glaze -- normally a coloring element -- sculpturally to create glistening droplets that evoke what Gouthro calls "dew" but may also represent juice, nectar, or some other erotic fluid.
Although I delight in the superficial whimsy of Gouthro's work, it is ultimately this painstaking attention to surface that makes these sculptures truly interesting aesthetic objects. Plenty of "whimsical" sculpture is smooth-fired and slick; while it may add a note of fun to a shelf, its attractions ultimately end there. Gouthro's apparent reluctance to interact with nature except through the mediating lens of comforting childhood nostalgia could relegate her work to just this level of kitsch or, as Wagonfeld (47) perhaps unintentionally puts it, that of a "wacky horticulturalist."

However, in their rough textures and glistening liquid flourishes, these flowers reassert the complexity and ambivalence of the natural world, with all its danger, rewards, and unbounded erotic drive. These objects were fired in the kiln just like any smooth plate or tile, but they still resemble the forms that could only be born in nature. This is why I think Gouthro's work is so interesting.

Bibliography

Gouthro, Carol. Artist's Statement. N.D. http://www.carolgouthro.com/statement.pdf

Turner, Anderson. Surface Decoration: Finishing Techniques. American Ceramics Society, 2008. Print.

Wagonfeld, Judy. "Futuristic Artifacts." Ceramics Monthly, Aug/Sep 2007, pp. 47-49. Print.