The Ville Article - October/November Issue 2003
The Ville is a local magazine published by Bryan Harris.
The Ville Magazine Website: http://thevillemag.com/
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Death
Becomes Him
Real life bone collector is Louisville's scariest artist
Story by Bryan Harris
Sculptor Owen Leitsch plays with dead parts.
That simple fact might not be enough to make him the scariest artist in Louisville. But if you count the fact that he plays with those dead things on top of a little black, satin-lined coffin in a basement decorated here and there with daggers; and he stacks his bedroom shelves with black books about ghosts, witchcraft, and every imaginable facet of the paranormal - along with the clincher, a scantily clad photograph of Jayne Mansfield - Leitsch is by far, leaps and bounds, a hundred times over, truly frightening.
There
is a method to Leitsch's madness. He's meticulous and doesn't use just
any parts. He is scrupulous. There's something about bones that he loves,
piquing his interest above all other artistic media.
Leitsch loves that they used to be alive - covered in flesh, extended and contracted by tissue and muscle and sinew, filled with marrow, kept alive with blood. That's what turns him on when it comes to bones. He likes big leg bones the best, and skulls. It is no coincidence those parts most closely resemble the beasts the pieces originally composed.
The
organic white bolts and pins of dozens of different animal species are
the subject of this jowly bone collector's curious machinations. He precariously
pairs the pieces, one by one, on top of the little coffin. His hammy fists
belie the precision with which his hands work. Once he reconstructed the
frame of a little dead bird, as fragile as a set of china match sticks,
perched on his macabre work bench. Other times it's a lamp made from cow
vertebrae. Every now and then it's his interpretation of a demon skeleton.
Leitsch says he didn't kill the animals himself. But from his casual demeanor and his intelligent bearing it's hard to believe he would really kill anything - very large. He obviously doesn't have any qualms about swiveling things after they're dead. That fact alone is enough to make people uncomfortable, like the schoolhouse peers who were sometimes curious enough to venture into his basement, only to lose their nerve and bolt back to the safety of his parents' suburban living room.
As
a little kid, Leitsch always love horror movies, ghost stories, and anything
to do with the macabre. When he was a little older, he began collecting
bones. A friend who lived on a farm invited him to scavenge the remains
of animals piled in the woods, and he eventually collected a veritable
veterinary killing field. Then, one day, he started arranging them into
interesting shapes. And then he started fixing them together. The next
think he knew, he was a bone sculptor. It was just a hobby. For a profession,
Leitsch attended mortuary school and began working for a local mortician.
There were things about the business he didn't like - the kind of shady
things he won't talk about - and he began to have doubts about his future
in the funeral business.
He continued to advance his hobby until an entire wall of his room was covered in assembled dead things. Word circulated among his friends, many of whom were similarly interested in the occult, and he developed a reputation for quality in "Necrosculpture." The craft, not surprisingly, doesn't have a huge demand, but does have a healthy segment market. He knows of less than a handful of artists across the country practicing the same art. His pieces sell for a few hundred dollars each and are on display in private collections of similarly exotic pieces around the country.
His
ambitions, and his projects, are getting bigger and bigger.
The next step: He wants to work with human remains. The only problems are price, and finding a reputable, well-documented supplier. The average human vertebrae costs about $8 and the price only goes up from there, with an "exquisite" human skull costing $700 or more. But Leitsch says if he can find someone willing to pay for the materials, he will gladly supply the effort.
All Images and Text is Copyrighted by Bryan Harris © 2003