Texas Focus: The Secret Life Of Lance Letscher

Rating: PG
Director: Sandra Adair 
Producer: Kristi Frazier
Composer: Graham Reynolds
Runtime: 95 min.
Genre: Documentary Feature
Release year: 2017

The Secret Life of Lance Letscher is a deeply personal and psychological portrait of internationally known, and Austin based, collage artist Lance Letscher. Told through memories of trauma and triumph, the film provides a doorway into Letscher’s profound insights on creativity, the subconscious, work ethic and spirituality. Through his intricate artistic process, we witness the artist’s unwavering determination to stay in the moment—free of mind, thought and preconception. Featuring detailed images of more than a hundred of his collages, sculptures, and installations, viewers are offered a visual feast while gaining intimate access into Letscher’s methodical techniques and brilliant mind.

Sandra Adair (Director/Producer) is an award-winning feature film editor and is debuting as a documentary director with The Secret Life of Lance Letscher. Adair resides in Austin, Texas, and has enjoyed an ongoing artistic collaboration with film director Richard Linklater, having edited 18 films for him over the past 22 years, including cult classic Dazed and Confused, the 2012 comedy Bernie and the critically acclaimed Before trilogy. In 2014, Adair was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Editing for Boyhood.  Other accolades include winning the American Cinema Editor’s Eddie Award for best edited dramatic feature for Boyhood in 2015, and winning Best Edited Documentary at the Woodstock Film Festival for Shepard & Dark. Adair is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and American Cinema Editors.

Kristi Frazier (Producer) has produced and marketed a multitude of creative projects and entities. The recently finished The Secret Life of Lance Letscher, a documentary that premiered at the 2017 SXSW film festival. She is also a writer and is developing an action-comedy, spi-fy series, The FiFi Chronicles. Other projects include feature documentary, A Single Frame that was honored at the Austin Film Festival and Santa Barbara International Film Festival. In 2014, Kristi produced the feature documentary, Wrenched, The Legacy of The Monkey Wrench Gang which has garnered numerous festival awards. Prior to producing documentaries, she was a commercial animation producer for many years at the celebrated Celluloid Studios, working on iconic national commercials for top advertising agencies.

Karen Bernstein's (Consulting Producer) body of work as a producer has been screened around the world at over 100 international film festivals, including Sundance and Berlin. Her documentary, Richard Linklater, Dream is Destiny, that she co-directed and produced, premiered at Sundance in 2016, and will air on American Masters in the fall of 2016. She received an Emmy award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series for her work on Ella Fitzgerald - Something to Live For in 1999.  She then received a Grammy award for producing Lou Reed - Rock and Roll Heart in 1998.  Among other noteworthy accomplishments is Bernstein's role as a series producer for American Masters.

Jordana Glick-Franzheim (Consulting Producer) Jordana Glick-Franzheim has 30 years of experience as a producer on studio and independent film and television projects. Her most recent producing credits include the recently completed feature documentary At The Fork,  the award-winning and critically acclaimed documentary One Lucky Elephant which aired on Oprah’s Network, the TV documentary mini-series Ivory Wars for Animal Planet/Discovery International, and feature films What’s Your Number starring Anna Faris; Extraordinary Measures starring Harrison Ford; Youth In Revolt starring Michael Cera; Management starring Jennifer Aniston and Freedom Writers starring Hilary Swank. Jordana founded the internationally financed Crossover Productions based in Los Angeles and Hamburg.

Mary Lloyd Estrin (Co-Producer) is currently program officer for the Human Rights and Economic Justice Program of the General Service Foundation, as well as a trustee of the foundation. She is also Vice President of the John Lloyd Foundation, which focuses on criminal justice reform in Los Angeles County.  She is the Board Chair of the Ploughshares Fund, a public foundation working to reduce nuclear stockpiles, prevent new nuclear states, and increase global security.  A professional photographer for 15 years, her work was published by Little Brown in To the Manor Born.

Bob Estrin (Co-Producer) built a career in Los Angeles as a film editor for classic films, including The Candidate, Badlands, and A River Runs Through It.  He worked closely with directors, including Dennis Hopper, Mira Nair, Peter Sellars, Terrence Malick, Haskell Wexler, and Robert Redford.  He also acted as a mentor at the Sundance Institute, working with young filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino.  In 1993, Bob joined the faculty of the School of Cinema at the University of Southern California and retired as the head of the Editing Department in 2001.  Bob served as Co-Executive Producer on The Forgotten Kingdom, and as Executive Producer on Becoming Bulletproof, and The Boys Who Said NO!  Bob owns Lone Mountain Cattle Company, raising award winning Wagyu cattle and served as president of the American Wagyu Association in 2011. Bob has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1986.

Graham Reynolds (Composer) Called “the quintessential modern composer” by the London Independent, Austin-based composer/bandleader Graham Reynolds creates, performs and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs and concert halls with collaborators ranging from Richard Linklater and Jack Black to DJ Spooky and Ballet Austin. His work can be heard throughout the world in films, on TV, on stage and on radio from HBO to Showtime, Cannes Film Festival to the Kennedy Center, and BBC to NPR.

Jason Gamble Harter (Director of Photography) graduated from the University of Texas in 2009, with a degree in Radio-Television-Film with a focus on cinematography. Upon graduation, he began working immediately as a freelance cinematographer, taking on a diverse collection of projects including commercials, narratives, documentaries, shorts, and music videos. His work has been featured on networks like NBC, MTV, Discovery Channel, the Home Shopping Network; the front pages of content aggregators like Yahoo, Reddit, YouTube, Funnyordie, Roosterteeth; in film festivals like L.A. Shorts Fest, New York Television Festival, South-by-Southwest film festival, and Austin Film Festival. Jason has become well known for his fluid cinema-verite style and his ability to work passionately as a team player.

Lance Letscher’s collages are accumulations of tiny bits of paper taken from a myriad of sources. His compositions, driven by a piecemeal aesthetic with a meticulously obsessive sensitivity to color and content, evoke both the expansiveness of the cosmos and the complex detail of microcellular life forms. Crafted with a rich and vibrant vocabulary eliciting discovery by his viewers, Letscher’s works engage us with their poetry and intricacy.

Since the late 1980’s, Letscher has used the raw materials of wood, marble, old books and paper in such a manner as to remove them from their original context.  As a youth, he cleaned out vacated rental properties owned by his grandparents and developed a curious habit of imagining other people’s lives from the traces left behind.  Trained as a printmaker, Letscher’s early career focused on intensely conceptual sculptures of marble or wood: a doll sized marble wheelchair, a dwarfed piano of wood, a rumpled child’s pillow in marble.  In the mid 1990’s Letscher shifted from his conceptual sculptures towards paper and collage, but took away from his experience as a sculptor an incredible patience and ability to focus on labor intensive compositions.  He began to collect antique paper, ledgers, old notebooks, diaries, letters, record covers, magazines and books from thrift stores, junk-shops, used-booksellers, and even dumpsters.

He meticulously organizes and stores these weathered materials, which he later surgically deconstructs and deploys, creating new narratives from shards of past memory. Letscher’s geometric and contemplative juxtapositions of color and pattern call to mind the classic craft of quilt making, which he has cited as an influence.  Other frequent comparisons are to a wide and varied roster of other artists: Josef Albers, Piet Mondrian, James Castle, and Martín Ramírez, among others.  Letscher’s most recent works explore notions of locomotion, technology, and the creative impulse at the heart of human nature.  Letscher re-visits his sculptural roots as his collages leap into three dimensions, using vibrant colors and letters to cover the surfaces of such varied subjects as guns, motorcycles, rockets, tools and toy planes.  A diligent and nearly constant worker, Letscher follows, with enthusiasm and gratitude, wherever his source materials lead him. 

Lance Letscher attended the University of Texas where he received both his Bachelor of Fine Arts and his Master of Fine Arts.  He later apprenticed for Amado Peña, an artist known for his Southwestern-style prints.  He currently lives and works in Austin, Texas.  His work is held in public and private collections around the country, and has been reviewed in Art in America, The New York Observer, and Harper’s Magazine, among other publications.  A full length monograph of his work, Lance Letscher: Collage, was published in 2009.

Mary Frasher is an Art & Development Coordinator at Children’s Blood and Cancer Center, an esteemed artist in her own right and married to Lance Letscher.

Louis Grachos is the Executive Director of The Contemporary Austin.

Brent Howell is a metal smith and the co-owner of the building where Lance Letscher’s metal mural hangs in Austin, Texas.

Patti Howell is an art collector, antiques dealer and the co-owner of the building where Lance Letscher’s metal mural hangs in Austin, Texas.

Robert Jessup is an artist who’s work has been exhibited extensively in numerous private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is a Professor at the College of Visual Arts and Design, University of North Texas.

Gabe Von Letscher is an artist, furniture maker, and Industrial Designer in Indianapolis, Indiana. Lance Letscher’s youngest son.

Jonathan Von Letscher is a songwriter, musician and artist who lives in Sweden. His songs have been heard in television series including Breaking Bad, Ray Donavon, and Gossip Girl. He is the eldest son of Lance Letscher.

Andrea Mellard is the Director of Public Programs and Community Engagement at The Contemporary Austin.

Charles Dee Mitchell is a curator, writer and art collector in Dallas, Texas.

John Reoch is a real estate attorney and an art collector specializing in emerging artists.

Nancy Rome is a commercial interior designer and an avid car and motorcycle collector as well as a contemporary art collector.

Rick Rome is an award-winning mechanical engineer committed to sustainable systems design. He is known for his innovative hospital designs. He is also an avid car and motorcycle collector as well as a contemporary art collector.

Sheri Tornatore is owner of South Congress Books in Austin, Texas, specializing in buying and selling antiquated and rare books.

Evan Voyles is an artist specializing in neon, with hundreds of hand-crafted, vintage signs seen all over Austin, Texas. He is known for giving South Congress Avenue its “bohemian” look. 

Nancy Whitenack is owner of Conduit Gallery in Dallas, Texas since 1984, representing Texas and internationally recognized artists.

Lillie Mae Williams is an Austin antiques dealer specializing in vintage and rare paper.

Steve Wiman is an assemblage artist and owner of an unusual antique store,  Uncommon Objects, on South Congress Avenue in Austin.

Pavel Zoubok is the owner of the Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York. He is a leading expert in the art form of collage and is the founder and artistic director of the International Collage Center.

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