MacKenzie Childs Dinnerware & Home Decor

MacKenzie-Childs was founded in 1983. The headquarters currently sit on a picturesque farm near Cayuga Lake that includes a farmhouse, gardens, and a shop where visitors can take free guided tours. All MacKenzie-Childs products are handmade by skilled artisans and no two pieces are identical. The company values the artisans as the most important element of their products. The hallmark of MacKenzie-Childs products is layers of handpainted artistry applied to each piece. Each handcrafted piece has a unique signature of its own with the artisan's stamp or mark showing his or her contribution to each piece.

MacKenzie-Childs pottery is molded by hand, machine-pressed, or slip cast and then fired up to three times, hand-glazed, and decorated. The pottery decorators mix their own colors which results in slight color variations and brush strokes vary by artist. This is seen as a valuable part of the art of MacKenzie-Childs products allowing the collector to see the artisans "hand" in each product. This process is time consuming and requires the skill of highly trained artisans with understanding of age-old crafts. MacKenzie-Childs furniture is often made in house, but some pieces are crafted elsewhere in the US or in other countries by best-in-class manufacturers. The furniture is hand-painted and this process requires great concentration and skill. Working from start to finish, a furniture decorator, working with artists' acrylics, decals, gliding and other decoration make take as long as two weeks to finish one piece.