Hitomi Mckenzie

Hitomi Mckenzie’s potting career started more than a decade ago when she moved from her native Japan to England.

Looking for simple household ceramics in her newly adopted country, Mckenzie was surprised when she came up empty. She decided to make what she couldn’t find.

“When I married and went to England, I wanted to buy some nice ceramics ... and couldn’t find anything I wanted. So I started a pottery course and totally loved the feeling of touching clay. I thought, I could make whatever I wanted instead of buying it,” she says.

Mckenzie, a new exhibitor at Circle Craft, moved to Vancouver with her husband in 2010. She creates artful yet functional pottery. Her mostly white collection of bowls, plates, mugs and cake-stand holders has an organic, handcrafted feeling with concentric ridges that remind the user that pottery begins at the wheel.

The form begins to make sense when Mckenzie discloses she used to work as a fashion designer in Japan. “I’m interested in holding fabric and drapes so I wanted to make something with a unique surface, but it’s difficult to make a surface that has the movement of fabric,” she says.

At her studio in East Vancouver, Mckenzie begins by throwing, then distorting the shape to produce an original design. Her pottery sells for an average of $30 a piece.

She draws inspiration from the everyday. After all, the goal is to make work that is used, not just displayed. She chose a white palette because it fits in any household. She loves hearing how her customers adapt her pottery by using the pieces in multiple ways.

“They’ll say they’re using an ice- cream bowl for a table accent or, in England, (for) gravy sauce for fish and chips. I like the feedback from the customers using it in different ways. I’m learning from that,” she says.