Low Down Articles
Artist Profiles - David McKenzie
Article 44 of 73
From the book Artists of the Gatineau Hill by Catherine Joyce. This article first appeared in the "Artist Profiles" column in the August 15, 2007 issue of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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The Imprint of the Watcher
David McKenzie is a quiet, thoughtful potter who has been making exquisite ceramics for over thirty years. He is a poetic and practical man who speaks about that delicate balance between letting things happen and not intervening to affect change and yey being acutely aware of the potentialities of the process in order to know when to act. Such is the mystery of crafting his pottery that his vision becomes metaphoric - symbolic of risk-taking both outwardly and inwardly.
"People wonder about the figures that recur in my work but I resist interpretation. These are images that mean something to me and are expressive of the human condition. Beyond that things remain open-ended."
And so the story begins, curving round a vase or layered on the surface of a plate with archetypal imagery that speaks of deeper things. The sharp but delicate delineation of line is always suggestive, with a quality of longing that arrests the viewer. This is art, literally cradled in a vessel that both contains and frees it.
"The artist is a Watcher. My pottery is the imprint of my watching - the vocabulary of my bearing witness to life. Ceramics have lasted for centuries and these images are like shards of perception that may one day be unearthed, decoded. I paint stories but I need the objects to exist, to stand at that intersection of time where the flow of my awareness meets the act of creation - I never know what will result. It is a dialogue, a continuous dialogue with the clay and with the fire and with the images in my mind."
David speaks of his desire for the story to continue, to slip out into the world both as object and as archetypal energy that may change over time. Always he is fascinated by the technical challenges, keeping track of the process and evaluating the results in exhaustive journals that go back over years.
There is something inscrutable about his work, almost oriental, with the feel of folk tales, long told. In one of his earlier series, Hieronymous Waits, David paired naked and vulnerable figures inspired by Bosch - diabolically caught in the web of fate - with lyrics by Tom Waits - "All your cryin' don't do no good/Come on up to the house/Come down off the cross/We can use the wood/Come on up to the house." He has captured that sly, mocking tone with an innocence and forgiveness that is startling in such an elemental medium.
Where does such a conjunction of skill and vision come from?
David was born in Hamilton in 1951 and spent most of his youth moving around Canada with his Air Force family. Coming to the Gatineau Hills in 1979 with his wife, Maureen Marcotte, allowed him to put down roots within a community that has returned his devotion. As young potters on the regional craft fair circuit, later members of Wakefield's Artist Co-operative, L'Armoire des Artisans and then the Studio Tour (1989-96), David and Maureen gathered about them local artists they wanted to support, eventually opening their own gallery, McKenzie Marcotte, in 1999. Their home is their art form on so many levels.
Essentially self-taught, David has become a master potter, a recipient of many awards, of solo and group exhibitions, and above all a champion of the arts in the Hills. With each one of his pieces you may enter the story and see the pattern of his images - those slanted houses and floating mermaids, flying antelopes and pulsing keyboards - falling into the reverie of his inner landscape. He won't say what they mean but let them work their magic and the Watcher inside you will emerge.