It's
quiet and calm in D. Berman Gallery on a recent morning, the day
after the opening reception of Lance Letscher's current exhibit.
And Letscher seems more comfortable with that. The night before,
about 150 people filtered through the high-ceiling gallery.
The 40-year-old artist shrugs
when asked if the opening went well: "You have to do the openings;
they're part of the deal. It went OK. . . . "
The truth is, the opening
did go well. Of Letscher's 15 colorful collages on display, five
have already sold -- four, in fact, before the party even kicked
off. (Letscher's collages range in price from less than $1,000 to
upward of $6,000.) And after Letscher finishes talking with a reporter,
a visiting British property developer will walk in off the street,
take one look at Letscher's work and promptly commission two pieces.
Perhaps it's the sheer visual poetry that people find irresistible
-- the exquisite hues, the striking compositions and the spirited
yet elusive details that emerge out of Letscher's carefully constructed
collages made from worn vintage paper.
After all, fortuitous episodes
such as the commission from the visiting Brit have been happening
recently for the native Austinite who has been working quietly and
steadily since completing bachelor's and master's of fine arts degrees
at the University of Texas in the 1980s.
In June, Letscher had his
first New York solo show at Howard Scott Gallery in Chelsea. The
show sold out and garnered rave reviews from hard-to-please New
York critics. In January, he'll have his second solo show at Conduit
Gallery in Dallas. Then in April, Letscher is off to Munich, Germany,
for a solo show at the noted Galerie Renate Bender. He's also got
some work headed to Tokyo for an exhibit in spring.
Letscher is diffident, almost critically shy -- not at all accustomed
to being interviewed, perhaps not so comfortable with all the attention
his career has been attracting lately.
Success is a double-edged
sword after all.
"It's relieving,"
he says, noting that the now-steady income he has from his work
lightens the financial burden of raising two teenage sons. But at
the same time, there's a whole new kind of artistic anxiety that's
fueling his insecurities. "I feel this pressure to push myself
-- to take my work to the next level. Once people have seen the
work I'm doing now, they'll perhaps won't want to see the exact
same thing a year from now." Such is the nature of success
in the art world. To stay on top you must, well, stay on top --
you must progress.
By all accounts though, the
powerfully visceral appeal of Letscher's work doesn't let up.
"Lance's
collages have a real way of grabbing people's attention," says
gallery owner David Berman. "People walk into the gallery and
just head straight for his work." 
Maybe that's because there's
not a barrage of collage art gaining attention right now in contemporary
art circles. Or maybe it's the expressive yet mysterious quality
that resonates from Letscher's work.
He builds his collages from
old book covers and paper scraps, scouring junk shops and second-hand
stores. But it's not just any old book or scrap of paper he's after.
"I'm selective about the quality of wear and tear," he
says. "And I like to look for odd colors and type faces and
fonts that imply specific eras."
Letscher collects handwritten
documents as well -- ledgers, letters, recipes, lists -- always
looking at the emotional quality of the script rather than the information
contained. And he loves the out-of-control aspect of children's
handwriting, the expressionistic quality it has. "I look for
something that has a mysterious quality," he says. "Something
you can't put your finger on."
Like the pattern of the stonework
in the fireplace at his grandparents' house. When he was young,
Letscher was fascinated by how the mason had crafted the fireplace
using a pattern of seven different size stones. Yet though he would
stare at it for hours, Letscher could never decipher the structure
of the pattern. Still he would gaze at the stone fireplace, mesmerized.
"I'm attracted to art
that has an endless quality to it," he says. "The sort
of images that make you feel like you're falling into them until
you're completely encompassed in a different world."
And that really describes
Letscher's current work. His collages evoke an incredible amount
of depth, whether they're a pattern of leaves against an off-white
background like "Small Green One" or a vigorous array
of small rectangles like "Red Bar."
Compositionally, Letscher
works in an abstract, not representational mode. It matches his
inner mood. "I see nature as perfect and elegant," he
says. "And I feel like an awkward person."
Most days find Letscher keeping
daytime work hours in the light-filled studio he built attached
to his tomato-red bungalow in Central Austin. Dogs bark out in the
yard. Four of them -- Letscher's wife, Mary, can't resist a stray.
He cuts the collected paper
and book scraps with surgical precision, assembling them on Masonite,
slathering them with brown-tinted book glue before letting them
dry while compressed in a book press. It's not exactly a complex
technique, yet it produces complex and compelling art.
"Lance Letscher was one
of the most sincere and earnest students that I have ever encountered,"
says Ken Hale, chair of the art department at UT, who taught Letscher
when he was a graduate and undergraduate. "He made art as if
it was an answer to an unanswerable question. Add to that a shyness
and a humbleness, and you have a very complex, multilayered individual
-- which describes his current work."
Rich, mesmerizing
and wondrous collages that are portals to another wholly developed
world.
jvanryzin@statesman.com;
445-3699
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