Tracey Maynard Ceramics

When two careers compete, one will eventually win. On one hand for Tracey Maynard, is wireless communications marketing. On the other, studio pottery and ceramics. In the fast-paced, high-priced lifestyle of Vancouver, it's easy to think the business life would win the race. But for Tracey Maynard, ceramics and pottery artist, this isn't the case.

While immersed in the corporate life, she found she needed a creative outlet and started going to a community centre pottery class. "I was soon doing 20 hours per week on top of my other work," she says about how her transition began in 2012.

"It's a very relaxed, very slow art. You have to weigh and measure your material, you have to fire it at the right temperature. It's very methodical and you can't rush it," Tracey says about her attraction to the art form, wearing a clay-covered apron inside her East Van studio while surrounded by pieces at various stages of completion.

Soon after, while looking for some equipment on Craigslist, she found a fellow who was selling his entire studio's worth of gear, for cheap, and decided to really go for it. "I had that feeling that I wanted to take it to the next level." Through instructional videos, picking the brains of her peers, and tons of practice, she did.