Bowls

Grand in scale, austere in demeanor, the bowls of Lars Zech venture beyond the realm of the vessel. This artist, woodsman, and gardener is rooted in the natural world that inspires him: His atelier—a year-round campsite devoid of house and heating but equipped with power and water—sits at the edge of Germany's Black Forest. Like Michelangelo liberating figures from marble, Zech discovers his bowl shapes inside the trunks of trees cut down due to disease, age, or weather damage. Some of them are 300 years old, and he sees giving the trees new life in bowl form as a way of reviving the strength, energy, and majesty that they once possessed.