COLLAGE OF MEMORY
IN THE SECRET LIFE OF LANCE LETSCHER, LAUDED FILM EDITOR SANDRA ADAIR FOLLOWS THE ARTIST AS HE TAKES ON A SOCO MURAL.
In The Secret Life of Lance Letscher, lauded film editor Sandra Adair follows the artist as he takes on a SoCo Mural.
When Oscar-nominated film editor Sandra Adair first met Austin collage artist Lance Letscher, she immediately felt compelled to tell his story. “There’s something about the way he can find pieces that speak to him,” says Adair, “little tiny pieces that attract him, and he cuts them out and makes something larger with a whole other intent for the material. It’s so akin to what I do as a film editor.”
And so Adair, a longtime collaborator of Richard Linklater’s, decided to make her directorial debut by following Letscher for several months at a pivotal time, as he prepared to take a huge departure from his intricate work with paper to create Big Eye, a metal outdoor mural on the side of the South Congress Books building.
“We just don’t know the artists that live among us,” says Adair, who sees Letscher—an internationally shown artist—as somewhat of a hidden Austin treasure. “I don’t know how many people that actually live here know about Lance and the work that he does. I know as an Austinite, I didn’t,” says Adair.
After premiering the 90-minute documentary, which features music by Austin’s Graham Reynolds, to rave reviews at South by Southwest in March, Adair hopes the film can be distributed to wider audiences. “It’s important to tell those stories, and bring them to the forefront of people’s consciousness,” she says. lanceletscherdoc.com
“WE JUST DON’T KNOW THE ARTISTS THAT LIVE AMONG US.” —SANDRA ADAIR