I indicated in a previous post that I grew up watching the Yankees play some other team on Saturday mornings. So a lot of my baseball art has been of Yankees greats like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Bill Dickey, and more. The image here has a nice story attached to it as it gave me an opportunity to speak on the phone with the Yankee Clipper himself. A thrill to say the least. It came about during my time with Sports Collectors Warehouse and I had completed a painting that was not this one of Mr. Di Maggio. His agent indicated he wanted something different to be done of him so he set it up for me to call him over the weekend. I was to call at a specific time and to expect to talk no longer than ten minutes. Upon making connection my conversation started out with a fact that my wife was related to him. It seems her Mother's Father and Joe's Dad were first cousins from the same town somewhere in Sicily. That set the tone for the conversation in which he paid me a compliment about my art he had seen. He indicated he had played with or against a lot of the players I had done for SCW up to that point and that I had nailed their likeness. That took us to the problem at hand and we discussed the changes he would like to see in the next attempt at the painting. The conversation ended after not ten minutes but thirty. I will always look fondly on that with pride. Long story short, I never did the painting for SCW as Mr. DiMaggio called me to tell me he did not trust the publisher and stopped the project. How did this painting end up getting done you ask? A collector contacted me to help him get some lithos he had paid for and I was able to take care of his request. After a couple of years he commissioned me to do a private painting for his collection of Mr. DiMaggio and gave me complete control of how it would look. We settled on the design that Mr. DiMaggio and I had discussed in our first conversation and that he wanted to be shown as the complete ballplayer. The rest of the story is that I complete the painting and a few years later get asked by the National Italian Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago to have them use it on the Official Publication for the museum. I did and six months before he passed away, Mr. DiMaggio gets to see the painting done the way we had discussed. Two years ago the owner of the original asked if it would be possible to produce a small number of prints of the painting that he could sell to some friends who admired the painting. We produced just 56 prints and to have a remarque drawn on each one. A true limited edition giclee. There are just a handful left and anyone interested in purchasing can contact me through this blog.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Yankee Greats
I indicated in a previous post that I grew up watching the Yankees play some other team on Saturday mornings. So a lot of my baseball art has been of Yankees greats like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Bill Dickey, and more. The image here has a nice story attached to it as it gave me an opportunity to speak on the phone with the Yankee Clipper himself. A thrill to say the least. It came about during my time with Sports Collectors Warehouse and I had completed a painting that was not this one of Mr. Di Maggio. His agent indicated he wanted something different to be done of him so he set it up for me to call him over the weekend. I was to call at a specific time and to expect to talk no longer than ten minutes. Upon making connection my conversation started out with a fact that my wife was related to him. It seems her Mother's Father and Joe's Dad were first cousins from the same town somewhere in Sicily. That set the tone for the conversation in which he paid me a compliment about my art he had seen. He indicated he had played with or against a lot of the players I had done for SCW up to that point and that I had nailed their likeness. That took us to the problem at hand and we discussed the changes he would like to see in the next attempt at the painting. The conversation ended after not ten minutes but thirty. I will always look fondly on that with pride. Long story short, I never did the painting for SCW as Mr. DiMaggio called me to tell me he did not trust the publisher and stopped the project. How did this painting end up getting done you ask? A collector contacted me to help him get some lithos he had paid for and I was able to take care of his request. After a couple of years he commissioned me to do a private painting for his collection of Mr. DiMaggio and gave me complete control of how it would look. We settled on the design that Mr. DiMaggio and I had discussed in our first conversation and that he wanted to be shown as the complete ballplayer. The rest of the story is that I complete the painting and a few years later get asked by the National Italian Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago to have them use it on the Official Publication for the museum. I did and six months before he passed away, Mr. DiMaggio gets to see the painting done the way we had discussed. Two years ago the owner of the original asked if it would be possible to produce a small number of prints of the painting that he could sell to some friends who admired the painting. We produced just 56 prints and to have a remarque drawn on each one. A true limited edition giclee. There are just a handful left and anyone interested in purchasing can contact me through this blog.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Fellow artist
Today I met with artist Dan Bois in my studio talking about working the Comic-Con Convention next year. I hope to have some designs up that will be made into bookmarks, buttons, and cards. You can see Dan's work at his blog at http://danboisgraphics.blogspot.com/
Last Legends cover for the Tocco era
As promised in the previous post here is the last cover I did for Paul Tocco. I liked the composition of this one and was glad it was the 50th cover and was of Mickey Mantle. As a boy growing up in San Diego in the 50's and 60's we watched baseball on TV on Saturday after Dad had us five boys (no sisters, my poor Mom was out numbered) doing yard work. It always seemed the Yankees were playing some other team and the announcers were former players Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese. Mantle was who all of us kids dreamed of becoming playing the baseball games in the street out in front of the house. And yes there were a few broken windows. Ultimately that is what Paul and I wanted to accomplish with the covers. After all most collect to capture a portion of ones past.
First Legends cover
This is the first in a series of postings I am calling "A Look Back" to help fill in the back story of projects or clients I have had. This of course is the first cover I did for my friend Paul Tocco who decided it would be a good idea to publish a guide for the sports memorabilia collector in articles and price guide. We started it at his kitchen table and I even did the logo by hand. We thought it would be cool to show some of the biggest Yankees through some era's in their history whose memorabilia was very sought after. Thus the reason for including the signed baseballs. The print run was only 2500 copies and today has become a collectible in itself. In a span of 54 months I created 46 paintings of which 40 were used as the cover. I will post the last cover I did for the Tocco era and follow with some recent covers for a individual who was attempting to restart the magazine.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
This is my latest painting for the San Diego Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park. It is of Capt. Eugene Cernan and he was the last astronaut to walk on the surface of the Moon. I got to meet him and get his autograph the night of the induction dinner for the Hall of Fame. Proud to be a part of this portion of the museum.
Just getting started
After a lot of thought I have decided to create a blog for people to come and see some of my creations as well as new ventures in my art career. Any suggestions or comments are always welcomed. Keep watching!
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