We were lucky to catch up with Lance Carlson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lance, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

About ten years ago I came up with the idea to take a recognizable piece of art and break it into 3″ squares that could be make by individual members of the Atlanta Collage Society. It was a real team building collaborative project. I took that concept and applied to a solo project for myself in 2010 and then again in 2024.I began the 2020 project during an art residency in Orquevaux, France. It was completed later in the year and debuted at the Kolaj festival in New Orleans. After several showings in around Atlanta it showed in Marietta, Georgia and then found its permanent home in the Emory School of Nursing in Decatur, Georgia. This project was titled, La Joconde. I then started another, Der Sternacht which was shown in Marietta, Georgia. These are interactive pieces that are assembled on site and consist of collaged pieces.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I come from a family of art enthusiasts. I always thought of myself as almost as good as my older brother who was the
great artist. He was known to family and friends as the one who was good at art and sort of pushed into becoming a great commercial artist. No one would dare think he would become a gallery/museum artist. I loved art but selected architecture as my major interest at a very young age. I still was “good at art’ and continued to draw and paint but was definitely on the path toward someday becoming an architect.
I started taking painting classes in my early forties and that became a new passion. At the time I naively thought of it as devoid of budgets, promotions, sales etc. It was a personal choice. When one of my painting classmates had a showing somewhere, it clicked that I should follow suit. It had never occurred to me that i would show or have gallery representation.

Have you ever had to pivot?

During the great recession, the business dropped dramatically for little architecture offices like mine. We held in for as long as we could but then split up in 2011. I was adrift and went to work for my wife’s non-medical homecare business which was also suffering during the recession. We have been reinventing ourselves ever since. Maybe that is a part of getting on in years, but neither of us had a retirement that was planned or joy filled.
We are still in a constant state of reinvention.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is a strange thing. I have divided my personal to Facebook and art to Instagram. I do cross-post but don’t really understand the use of social media as a tool. I post almost daily to Instagram as I produce usually daily no matter how small. I also seek opportunities to show and cross pollinate on Instagram. I really do not have any loyalty to any particular gallery which is pretty freeing. I am also very critical of art that I see in galleries in around Atlanta. I have found that finding and “liking’ art from across the country and the world can be beneficial.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://carlsonmixedmedia.com
• Instagram: lance,carlson_artist
• Facebook: personal
• Linkedin: don’t use it
• Twitter: dropped it
• Youtube: don’t post but watch it occasionally
• Yelp: don’t use it
• Soundcloud: don’t use it