Collection: Lars Voltz

Lars Voltz received his BS in art education at Bemidji State University (MN) then pivoted to study ceramics at Wichita State University (KS). In 2014, he earned his MFA, the art history portion of which was completed in Japan, Cuba, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. The following fall, Voltz moved to Shawano (WI) with his wife Joyce St. Clair Voltz, to apprentice with Simon Levin. During that year, Voltz traveled to Hangzhou, China to build wood kilns for the China Academy of Art. Voltz completed residencies at the Red Lodge Clay Center (MT), Iowa Ceramics Center and Glass Studio (Cedar Rapids), and Studio Nong (Nanning, China) and has lectured and demonstrated throughout the United States and China. Notably, Voltz has exhibited work at the Bienal de Curitiba (Brazil), The Archie Bray Foundation (Helena, MT), the Collective Design Fair (New York City), and the Guangxi Art Academy (China).

Like so much of geology, these pots are remnants of what once was. They are also an impetus for what can be. Pottery provides incredible potential for evoking aspects of the world that are massive, turbulent and forceful within living contexts of space, decoration, interaction and materiality–metamorphic notions slid about and upon domestic tectonics. There’s great joy for me in compressing and questioning dynamics of the world outside within objects that are in and of themselves little insides. Limiting myself to one clay and one glaze allows much more of my attention to be focused on what is happening to the clay and how I can dig into it deeper. This compression allows conversations between deposition and erosion, chaos and calm, elegance and gnar and many other dualities to evolve reflexively within the iterative processes I work within.