Exhibiting his ceramics at Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium is something like coming home for artist Al Letner.
His work will be on view in the wall display cases of the Beverly Corcoran Gallery in the auditorium lobby.
Letner was well acquainted with the late Corcoran, a longtime director of the Pittsburg Arts Council who died in 2006.
“She was one of those people who would have made an impact no matter where she was, and we were lucky to have her in Pittsburg," he said.
The first art exhibit he booked with Corcoran was in the 1980s. “But it wasn’t in Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium, it was in some building around the corner,” Letner said. “Bev also invited my students to exhibit their work every year.”
He originally decided to become a teacher so he could afford to do art, and found that he enjoyed both.
Letner retired in 2005 after being an art educator in Carl Junction, Mo., for 27 years.
“I had a studio at my home near Pittsburg for a few years, then I decided to go back to the classroom,” he said. “Right now I’m teaching pottery and sculpture part-time at Columbus.”
Letner attended Pittsburg State University after leaving military service in 1972. He started as a history major with a minor in art, then became an art major with a minor in history, finally deciding that he had enough credits to be a dual major in both.
“Marjorie Schick was my advisor in art, and her husband, James Schick, was my history advisor,” Letner said.
He graduated from PSU in 1976, then taught for a year at Wheaton, Mo. He returned to PSU to start work toward a master’s degree, but got his job at Carl Junction before he could complete it.
While he does some two-dimensional work, such as paintings and collages, Letner discovered that he had a fascination with clay, a substance that starts out wet and sticky and ends up as hard as rock after the artist is done with it.
“I get most of my inspiration from the natural world, and think of myself as an organic artist,” he said.
Two of the works in the exhibit have fossils, several hundreds of millions of years old, embedded in them.
“I designed the pots around the fossils,” Letner said. “One of the pots won best of show, I think at Fort Scott.”
Honors are nice, but not the main reason why he displays his art. “If you are going to create the work you have to show it,” Letner said. “That doesn’t mean you have to sell it, and people don’t even have to like it.”
He said that he can’t count how many ceramic pieces he has made over his career.
“However many, it’s not enough yet,” Letner said. “Some day they’ll throw dirt on me, then I’ll be through.”
