Brian Mackin believes one good turn deserves another.
The island potter, whose wheel-thrown vessels can reach seven feet in height and weigh 1,500 pounds, is donating a work to the Nov. 8 Auction for the Arts fund-raiser – revived, after a year’s hiatus, by Bainbridge Arts and Humanities Council and Bainbridge Arts and Crafts joined by Bainbridge Chorale – to thank the community that has supported him.
“I’ve had so much help,” Mackin said. “I had my first solo show at BAC, so they took a chance on me. I have this loyalty – when someone helps me, I want to pay them back ten-fold.”
If outside help has been one factor contributing to Mackin’s busy and successful career, hard work and luck have been others.
Mackin was born in Seattle in 1963 but grew up in Moscow, Idaho, son of the town’s cable TV station operator and sometime mayor.
He left Whitman College after his junior year and traveled to Japan, where he enrolled in a public language school in downtown Kyoto.
“After three months I was dreaming in Japanese,” Mackin said.
Mackin also signed up for his first pottery class there, learning the wheel under instructor Shiro Imamura.
Imamura’s English was limited, so teacher and student arrived at a truncated, but significant communication – the word “shibui,” which denotes a quality of “Japaneseness.”
“Some pots have it, some pots don’t” Mackin said. “That was kind of our word: is it or isn’t it?’”
Mackin returned to the states and, after a brief stint at Pilchuck Glass School, where all he managed to blow, he says, were paperweights and Christmas balls, Mackin refocused on clay.
He earned his keep with bartending, waiting tables and working in breweries.
“I worked at (the) Red Hook (ale house), doing four days of ‘10s,’” Mackin said.
Then, in 1988, he got a lucky break in his personal and his professional life, when he met his now-wife, Andrea.
“I ‘bought’ her in a cystic fibrosis auction,’” Mackin said. “We moved to San Francisco and got married.”
The couple found that their respective skills dovetailed nicely; Mackin could find work quickly, buying time for Andrea’s more systematic job search for work as a fund-raising counsultant.
The couple moved to Bainbridge to raise a family; their four children attend island elementary and preschools.
Mackin’s work had developed into large vessels that continue to be wheel-thrown.
“This scale tends not to be,” he said. “It goes into sculpture (at that scale); even garden urns from Malaysia and Korea tend to be coil-built.”
He uses clay bodies that include porcelain, stoneware, terra cotta, cinnamon and low-fire earthenware.
Mackin began to show his large-scale vessels regionally and then cities nationwide. He upped his solo exhibits to four per year – a phenomenal number for any artist.
Then, in 1999, just as Mackin opened his first New York show, the recession hit and “everything stopped.”
Mackin found that the secret to survival was to diversify. He began teaching, offering pottery classes in his studio. All three filled, giving him 30 students on a weekly basis.
“It was classes that saved me,” Mackin said.
For 10 years, friends had encouraged him to post a web site, but Mackin had told them, “What do I need a web site for? I’ve got galleries.”
Now, he constructed a web site and began to advertise in publications such as Garden Design – a strategy that generated sales from Boston to Boulder.
But the spirit that animates his career is not entrepreneurial, he says.
“It’s not like we sit around and dream up new business,” he said. “It’s more out of desperation. I feel like a chef or a musician; you’re only as good as your last year.”
Next year looks promising; Mackin already has four shows slated – in Chicago, Philadelphia, Spokane and at BAC.
His work continues to evolve; recently, Mackin has been cutting back on glazes, he says, to “give the clay more presence.”
He said, “I just love form, line and curve.”
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The Auction for the Arts will be held 5-9 p.m. Nov. 8 at Clearwater Casino’s
new Slahal Ballroom in Suquamish. Proceeds benefit the education and cultural missions of BAC, BIAHC and the Bainbridge Chorale.
The evening includes a silent auction and cocktails, 5-7 p.m., followed by a live auction and dinner from, 7-9 p.m. Rob Beattie is auctioneer and Sally Hewitt is event announcer. Bainbridge Chorale entertains with live music.
Tickets are $80, available at BAC, BIAHC, Art Soup, or www.auctionforthearts.info.
