Passion for pottery: How Makiko Hastings is fighting against the throwaway culture with her handmade tableware

More recently, many of those inherited collections have found themselves forgotten or retired. In the twenty-first century, screen time and throw away culture has eroded the ritual of sitting around a table together at meal times. In many homes people opt for teas-on-knees while ready-meal packaging and mass-produced supermarket-bought plates have taken the place of the previously treasured dishes.

It's a lack of connection to our tableware that Japanese born potter Makiko Hastings noticed when she first moved to the UK.

Working from her studio in Knaresborough, she hopes her lovingly crafted wheel-thrown pieces will encourage a new way of using and cherishing our crockery.

“One way of looking at pottery is that some people might want to have a collection and treat it like art to look-at, but I want my pottery to be used in daily life,” she explained.

“That’s because the food culture in Japan is quite deep. Table gathering was an important part of my childhood.”

“Over here everything was on the one plate and then quite casually it was just eat and done with - or otherwise people have set tableware and everything is just pristine, and for me that’s kind-of too polite or too posh. It’s not really living life.”

“I want my work to be part of daily life so people feel comfortable with it and cherish it.”

Makiko embraces the slow process of pottery. New collections are never rushed to meet commercial demands - “ideas just come when you’re not trying to think. It just comes when you’re on a bus or walking and then eventually I’ll formulate how I want it.”

The majority of Makiko’s current work culminates in two distinguished but complimentary collections.

The first, ‘Mazekoze’, which means “mixing up”, is primarily a nod to the versatility of its understated pieces but also a fitting summary of Makiko’s multicultural vision.

Traditional Japanese tableware pieces like the personalised Ochawan rice bowls, wooden Shiruwan soup bowls and tiny Mame-Zara condiment plates are replaced with generous breakfast bowls, dinner plates, mugs and jugs to compliment a British cuisine.

There’s a choice of four colours; sakura pink, grey, yellow ochre and white. The idea being local customers will mix and match the pieces with items they already own to create tables filled with a selection of dishes where people can congregate to enjoy their meal and human company in equal measure.

“It’s pottery that carries the memories of the people who eat food together,” she said.

“For instance you know Grandma always makes lasagne in this dish or at Christmas time you always use that (piece of tableware) so that attaches to a memory.

“I think pottery is a really good vehicle for carrying people’s memories and if I can make something that passes through their life then I think that is a very honourable thing.”

The importance of human connection is at the heart of all Makiko’s work and her collection ‘Rakugaki’ - the Japanese word for “doodling” - is where she is at her most expressive.

During the pandemic, her own experience of struggling with poor mental health and the hardship experienced by a locked-down UK population inspired Makiko to put her emotions directly onto clay.

In Rakugaki, individually crafted stoneware pieces in gentle blues and whites that could almost hint at the once ubiquitous designs of ornate fine china are instead hand-decorated with warm expressions and playful depictions of British wildlife. Makiko makes her mark using a paper cutting method of blue slip and sgraffito - a centuries old technique which sees the potter apply a layer of glaze before using a carving tool to scratch out a design revealing the base layer of colour.

“I am loved. I am enough. I am worthy. I am safe,” reads one plate.

This collection is an opportunity to connect with her customers on an emotional level, “I like human feelings and I try to explore that,” she said.

“Pottery is just a pot but it’s more than a pot, I can actually connect to the people through my expressions, through the words I choose.

“So that’s how I use pottery as a vehicle for my emotion and also part of my healing journey.”

Makiko didn’t view pottery as a realistic career prospect until later in life.

She described a “strict” upbringing in Japan where an interest in pursuing creative work and further education was discouraged.

When she moved to London as a 24-year-old to study English language she was determined to explore what felt like previously prohibited artistic avenues.

Back in Japan, she had dabbled in interior design and window decoration as a hobby and as she broadened her creative horizons she was drawn to the idea of making the kind of tableware she had once carefully displayed.

She completed a course in pottery at Harrogate College and it was here in Yorkshire, under the mentorship of the late Halifax based potter David Constantine White, where her passion for clay really took hold.

“I really liked his way of decorating the surface so freely. He had so much spirit in him.

“I started helping him and gradually I became an assistant at the studio and that’s how I got into real pottery outside of the school.”

But it was still some time before Makiko committed completely to her own pottery, focusing primarily on a career in social work and later teaching pottery to people with disabilities.

Eventually, in 2017, she took a “leap of faith” and set up her full time business.

“To start with I obviously didn't have any customers so I joined the trade show and then from there I gained contacts in galleries across the country,” she said.

“Being your own boss, you can do it how you want to do it. I absolutely love it. I can work at my own pace, everything is in my control.”

Seven years in the business is thriving and Makiko spends her working hours practising the craft she describes as “pure enjoyment.”

“What do I love about pottery most?” she pauses to consider. “Just creating something from mud. I think this material is fantastic. It’s so versatile and it’s almost limitless because you make it out of just clay to make it something you can enjoy everyday.”

Working out of her bespoke studio, purpose built by her engineer husband, she’s free to structure her work around her young daughter’s school schedule.

Makiko has moulded an idyllic life for herself in Knaresborough far beyond the artistic limitations she felt growing up.

Still, her Japanese heritage remains at the forefront of her identity.

“Every time I go to Japan I feel homesick. Every time coming back from Japan I feel homesick.

“I think lots of immigrants feel a similar way. It feels like having two homes.”

It’s a duality that defines Makiko’s work.

As a nation many of us continue to prioritise on demand TV and quick fix meals over sitting down to make memories with the people we love.

Meanwhile, in her corner of North Yorkshire, Makiko endeavours to impart a small piece of her Japanese culture - creating tableware that centres on human connection.