By PATRICIA GUTHRIE
Special to The Record
The founders of one of Whidbey Island’s hottest homegrown products — Cook on Clay — have an announcement: They are not going anywhere.
But their business is.
The popular high-temperature handmade ceramic cookware used by professional chefs and home cooks will soon be manufactured in Athens, Ohio by a new owner.
Robbie Lobell and Maryon Attwood, the pioneering women of the cooking pots, are staying put. They plan to keep nourishing Whidbey Island’s flourishing ceramic community from their combo Langley residence and workshop. It will reopen for workshops and holiday sales under the name Third Street Studio.
“Everyone thinks we’re leaving,” Lobell said, standing outside the kiln where many Cook on Clay creations were born and baked. “We’re not.”
Another clarification: Cook on Clay wasn’t sold.
It was “gifted” to Stuart Gair, ceramic artist and assistant professor of instruction at Ohio University as a gesture of legacy and generational goodwill.
But more on that later.
Known as flameware, Cook on Clay ceramic platters and pots are designed for extreme high temperatures for use in the oven, stovetop or grill. They can also hold up to extreme temperature changes without cracking.
Through the years, the handmade platters, casserole dishes, square bakers, skillets, stovetop pots and rectangular skillets won praise for their combination of sleek beauty and high functionality. Cook on Clay orders came in from every state, Canada and many other countries. Prices ranged from $95 small platters to $545 for a nesting set of three square baking squares. (Production is on hiatus but expected to resume later this year.)
Chefs say they love the stovetop to tabletop aspect of Cook on Clay for its function, flair and enhancement of flavors.
“For braising they are fantastic,” said Vincent Nattress, chef/owner of Orchard Kitchen in Langley, one of Whidbey Island’s premier culinary destinations where the menu revolves around the surrounding five-acre organic farm.
Stainless steel just can’t compete with one particular clay pot custom made by Lobell, Nattress said.
“I love it because it fits a whole shoulder of lamb and the lids just fit better — more closely, creating a better seal.”
After moving to Whidbey Island in 2005 and setting up their first studio in Coupeville, Lobell and Attwood became mentors and role models in both art and business.
Lobell is the company’s original designer and main artist while Attwood tended to all other matters as operations and business manager.
They did what few creative people attempt and even fewer accomplish — turn art into a successful artisan manufacturing business without sacrificing quality of product or purpose of heart. Along the way, they also established their own apprentice program.
Although Whidbey seems awash in potters these days, there were only a handful two decades ago.
“Whidbey potters owe a lot to Robbie and to Cook on Clay,” said Cara Jung, owner of Whidbey Clay Center in Freeland. “They’ve done so much for all of us.”
Cook on Clay also influenced the fields of ceramic arts and culinary arts on a national level. “Nobody was doing what we were doing,” Atwood recalled.
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.
“It wasn’t a straight or clear path, but one that wended its way in and around our ideas and skills and connections,” Lobell said of Cook on Clay’s trajectory. “Mentors, colleagues, apprentices, communities all influenced how we walked that road.”
In 2010, Cook on Clay sales began in booths at farmers markets and ceramic shows. It quickly grew into a company with a website, product catalogue, backlog of orders and new fans among foodies, chefs, and followers of the Slow Food and Farm to Table movements.
“I couldn’t keep up with the demand,” Lobell recalled. “So we made our first mold — nesting square baker dish in large, medium, small.”
Cook on Clay’s Zakin Apprentice Program was a work/trade hands-on operation for young potters to learn skills and confidence. Jordan Jones and Clovy Tsuchiya, who both now have their own Whidbey studios and teach classes, trained alongside one another from 2012 to 2014. They handled the production of hundreds of cookware pieces.
“Consistency and standards for products were extremely high,” Tsuchiya said. “I certainly saw Cook on Clay as a model for what I do now.”
Lobell and Attwood, both in their 70s, said they started looking for a buyer three years ago for several reasons, including the work’s demanding physical toll.
“We never really recovered from the extreme COVID disruptions of business and supply chain,” Lobell said. “And the affordable housing issues led to losing our workforce.”
Although clay pots have been vessels for cooking since time immemorial, it takes an exacting combo of chemistry, creativity and clay — along with timing and tinkering the burn within a 2,000-degree soda kiln — to turn out utilitarian pots pretty enough for gourmet food.
Buyers weren’t burning to buy the business.
In December, after getting reacquainted with Stuart Gair at the 50th Annual Pottery Show and Sale at Old Church in Demarest, New Jersey (a show founded by Zakin in 1974), Attwood and Lobell decided it was time to pass the torch.
“We didn’t sell Cook on Clay,” Lobell said. “We’re gifting it to the next generation and that’s what is really important to us.”
“It’s a legacy that was given to us,” Attwood added, “and we’re paying it forward.”
They will remain as advisors to the company. Lobell said she’ll receive royalties for sales of her design.
“When we look back on everything, we get so amazed at what we did,” Lobell reflected. “ It was a willingness to take a risk.”
Looking ahead, Lobell has summer workshops planned on remote Fogo Island in Newfoundland and on Whidbey Island. Next year, she’s been invited to be a resident at the prestigious three-month McKnight Fellowship for Ceramic Artists at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis.
Lobell said she’ll still make individual flameware in the future— but at a slower pace.
Attwood intends to keep creating tiny clay abodes called spirit houses while continuing to volunteer for numerous local nonprofits.
“Maryon is the activist in the family,” Lobell proudly said of her business and life partner (15 and 30 years, respectfully.) “She was on the founding board of the Organic Farm School and Whidbey Island Grown while I hid in my studio.
“I’m looking forward to having time to do some local advocacy work with her,” Lobell added. “I feel a surge of energy and freedom. I haven’t been in the studio since December.”
