So this week I attended Peter’s Valley School of Craft for a ceramic class. This is a course to learn how to make utilitarian pots with Robbie Lobell. Now Robbie Lobell is a very influential and successful ceramist who has just published a book on her techniques when working with flameware. Her pieces are very unique because they can be used in very extreme temperatures quickly without cracking or shattering. She calls her line of pottery Cook on Clay and her work is absolute magnificent.
I feel honored to be able to work with Robbie Lobell and see her techniques when working with clay. I have to say she is definitely the cleanest ceramist I have ever met. Her attention to detail and functionality is unreal. She has shared with us how influential her mentors have been in her career and her personal life. Robbie had no formal training which definitely does not show in her work because the her meticulous attention to detail and obstacles she had to find solutions to. Her mentors supported her in many ways including showing her the ways of creating flameware. How she uses her tool is outstanding because her pieces of pottery become so smooth and shiny as if it was waxed. I hope sometime in my lifetime I could make something so perfect just like her. I would advise anyone who would have the opportunity to work with Robbie Lobell to do it in a heartbeat. I love learning and just listening about how she throws clay and her idea about functionality. She has taught me so much in just a five day course. She is definitely a very influential artist.
