Artist Statement

“I strive to express the natural qualities and lively nature of clay by using a slow turning wheel, soft clay, soft parts of my hands, and soft ribs. The interaction of sculptural and utilitarian considerations is the foundation of my forming as I seek simplicity, function, elegance, and beauty in making pots for daily use – for cooking & serving & presentation. I make pots with both a light stoneware clay body and a flameproof clay body. My forms begin on the potter's wheel and many are built upon with additions of lids, handles, spouts, and feet. Some are altered from round to rectangular, triangular, oval, or square. All the pots I make are food safe, dishwasher safe, and ready for use.
I was introduced to flameware clay in winter 2000/01 during a six-week residency in the studio of Karen Karnes. With this new material and ideas of cooking in clay pots, a new vocabulary of function and form has evolved as I explore the needs and aesthetics of a pot that is used from the oven to the table.
All my pots are fired to cone 10 in my 70+ cubic foot propane-fueled kiln with a touch of wood and a light application of soda ash which allows the firing process to leave its subtle, softening, and sometimes surprising influence upon the surface of the clay.
I am committed to making pots for use in the kitchen, on the table, and in the home. I believe a need for human touch is satisfied through the daily use of pots made by human hands.”

Biography

Robbie Lobell is a studio potter living and working on Whidbey Island in Washington. 

She is primarily self-taught and spent 12 years working on the east coast where she completed intensive study with Mikhail Zakin in 1994 and a six-week residency with Karen Karnes in 2001.  She was Artist-in-Residence and then Resident Potter at the Worcester Center for Crafts in Worcester, MA from 1994 - 1998.  Lobell was on the faculty at the Worcester Center for Crafts for 10 years and has taught workshops and classes throughout the country including at Wesleyan Potters, Middletown, CT, Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, Truro, MA, Lehman College, Bronx, NY, Old Church Cultural Center School of Art, Demarest, NJ , Vermont Clay Center, Mudflat Studio, Somerville, MA, Peter’s Valley Craft Center, Layton, PA, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Deer Isle, ME, Mendocino Art Center, CA, and Pottery Northwest and Seward Park Art Center, Seattle. 

Lobell's work has been exhibited in group and solo shows nationwide including; Women With Wood, Heinz Center, Pittsburg NCECA 2008, 8th Annual Mingei Glenn Richards Pottery Invitational, Seattle, WA (November 2006), TEACH, Pottery Northwest, Seattle, WA, The Simple Cup, Kobo at Higo, Seattle, WA, Vapourware, Pottery Northwest, Seattle, WA, Gas It Up: Salt, Soda, and Slip, The Potters Guild, Baltimore, MD (in conjunction with NCECA 2005), Container – Content: A Survey of American Studio Ceramic Art, Fuller Museum of Art, the Strictly Functional Pottery Nationals, Clay Cup V & VII, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, the  Annual Invitational Pottery Shows, Demarest, NJ, Functional Ceramics, The Wayne Center for the Arts, Wooster, OH.  Her work is carried in galleries and gourmet shops nationally.  Lobell’s work has been featured in Ceramics Monthly Magazines, Ceramics Monthly’s 2005 Workshop Handbook, and in the Krause Publications book, The Art of Contemporary American Pottery by Kevin Hluch.   She is a member of NCECA, The Artist Trust, The American Ceramic Society, Washington Potter’s Association, and Northwest Designer Craftsmen.