WIAC History Project - Zakin Apprentice Program

A Mentorship in Mud: Robbie Lobell and Maryon Attwood
Mar 3, 2025
by Patricia Guthrie

Officially, it was called the Cook on Clay Zakin Apprentice Program in Studio Pottery, Small Business Practices and Artisan Manufacturing.

Or a mentorship in mud.

“Clay mothers” and “mud mentors” is how Whidbey Island’s Cook on Clay co-owner Robbie Lobell fondly calls her own pottery teachers, Mikhail Zakin and Karen Karnes. So when she decided to pass on those lessons to the next generation, she named the apprenticeship after Zakin, the woman “who guided me to connect with the material and to my relationship with the clay.”

Lobell is the primary artist behind the successful business that sells a wide variety of handmade ceramic stovetop pots, casserole dishes, skillets and other cookware designed to heat on the stove, oven and grill. Maryon Attwood is the business brains and production manager of the Cook on Clay operation, though she jokingly describes her duties as, “sweeper of all things that need to get done, I do.”

The company owners just announced they have sold the business, saying they are “excited to pass the torch to a terrific team of next generation makers who will continue the Cook on Clay flameware legacy in Ohio.”

They plan to stay where they are outside Langley under a new name, Third Street Studios.

Lobell will continue to teach her craft at workshops near and far. Attwood plans to keep making clay structures called spirit houses.

Lobell studied with famed ceramic artist Mikhail Zakin for two years in the early 1990s. In 2001, Lobell received the clay cookware flameproof recipe from Karen Karnes, who had been part of the legendary arts communities of Black Mountain College in North Carolina and New York State’s Gate Hill community.

Lobell and Attwood, who ran a craft school in Massachusetts, started Cook on Clay in 2010, five years after moving to Whidbey. They settled on a sprawling piece of property between the town of Coupeville and Fort Casey. With a house, studio and small trailers to house apprentices, they embarked on offering apprenticeships to young women.

“We felt it was important to give young women the space and time to find their way with clay as Karen and Mikhail did for me,” Lobell said. “To become mentors for a life in clay.”

The hands-on apprenticeship kept young potters’ hands caked in mud and their boots covered in shop dust. It also taught them the business of being an artist — establishing a studio, selling their products and developing many skills needed to strike out on their own.

“The apprenticeship was meant to provide young women with the confidence and skills to make their own pieces in their own studios,” Attwood said. “We also taught them how to write grants, obtain a business license, write a press release, discuss prices and get feedback from customers.”

​Cook on Clay had been a member of Whidbey Island Arts Council since 2005. One of the programs WIAC offers is that it can act as a fiscal non-profit umbrella for sponsored programs. Cook on Clay raised money for the Zakin Apprenticeship through grants and private donors and found support in ceramic communities and organizations nationwide.

After a three-month trial and training period of the Cook on Clay production process, apprentices were paid an hourly wage beyond 12 hours of work exchange per week.

Set-up as a work/trade agreement, the Zakin program offered a trailer to live in, mentoring, education, studio facilities and kiln firings in exchange for 20 to 25 hours of work per week.

Jordan Jones and Clovy Tsuchiya were chosen to be in the Zakin program at the same time, training alongside one another from 2012 to 2014. The apprenticeship then became a one-year program until it ended in 2019.

At times, Tsuchiya recalled how she and Jones were put in charge of making 100 - 150 flameproof cookware pots from start to finish. They are made in molds designed by Lobell on a huge hydraulic press to meet the high-volume demand.

“Consistency and standards for products were extremely high,” Tsuchiya said. “I certainly saw Cook on Clay as a model for what I do now.”

Pottery pieces made by Tsuchiya look sleek and shimmery yet retain an earnest earthiness. She calls her technique “zygoplasia” or function fulfilled by a harmonious cooperation of contrasts.

“There’s a certain amount of randomness in what I make,” she said. “I want it to look organic like they have been grown in a clay surface.” The apprenticeship encouraged potters to find their own “personal visual vocabulary” and develop their own signature clay style.

Functional fun became the motif of Jones’ work. Her mugs, vases and bowls feature brightly painted animals — bunnies, goats, horses — and other critters found roaming near her Clinton studio.

“I believe that using handmade objects brings joy to people in their lives, and I hope my pots bring happiness to others,” she said.

There’s much to learn and master when turning a lump of clay into fine art or functional form. The Zakin program covered the basics, such as shaping and centering at the wheel, clay testing, glaze development, various firing methods, kiln and studio maintenance, best studio practices, and the business of sales, such as photographing pots, selling at markets, social networking and online sales.

Lobell and Attwood also stressed the need for artists to sell themselves and the art of craft.

“Part of it is learning and knowing what it means to be an artist in the world,” Attwood said. “To teach the general public about things that are well crafted and handmade instead of Made in China.”

In the spring of 2017, Tsuchiya and Jones formed the group, Potters of Whidbey, or PoW, as a way to connect and collaborate with other ceramic artists; WIAC helped support that group.

In the decade since their Cook on Clay apprenticeship, they’ve gone from mentees to mentors. Both Jordan and Clovy have taught at Whidbey Clay Center in Freeland and beyond.

These days, potters and ceramic artists seem to be everywhere on Whidbey Island. But 20 years ago, there were perhaps three or four potters who regularly sold their work, Attwood said.

“Whidbey Island now touts its own homegrown crop of potters,” she added. “We’ve trained a number of young women to become potters. Our goal was to create more community. I’m proud of my participation in that.”

Cara Jung cites the Cook on Clay apprenticeship and Lobell and Attwood for their community spirit in molding new ceramic artists. Jung is owner of Whidbey Clay Center, which she expanded in space and equipment several years ago. All of its classes fill quickly and its spacious studio buzzes with members day and night.

“Whidbey potters owe a lot to Robbie and to Cook on Clay,” Jung said. “They’ve done such much for all of us.”

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