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1.30.2004 |
ART
The Cubs' official
site has a nice
profile of artist John Hanley, who has recently turned his
attention to painting portraits of sports stars:
John Hanley has been a Chicago Cubs fan all of his life and the 42-year-old
artist has taken his affection a few steps further, trying to capture the
team in his paintings.
Seeing Hanley's art online roused me to dig through some small portraits I
had done as a kid.
I began mucking around in portraiture when I was 12 or so, and I started for
exactly one reason: I was cheap. I wanted to send my baseball cards to my
favorite players to collect their autographs, but I was suspicious of the
U.S. Postal system, and thought the players themselves were suspect as well.
Not wanting to lose "valuable" cards in the mail, I drew portraits based on
the cards and sent those instead.
My likenesses often left a lot to be desired, but my efforts must have
charmed the players somewhat, as almost everyone sent my pictures back,
signed. A couple of my first drawings: (all thumbnails are clickable):
I was big into rookies at the time, and sent out pictures to the likes of
Palmeiro, Snyder, Danny Tartabull, and Matt Nokes. Of course, I was partial
to Cubs youngsters:
I sent the drawing above to Mark Grace first, hoping he'd open his mail in
the clubhouse and pass the picture on to Damon Berryhill and Palmeiro before
sending it back. No such luck. So when Gracie sent it back to me, I sent
it right back to the Cubs, this time addressing the envelope to Berryhill.
Berryhill was one of my favorite players at the time, and he included a short
note with the pic when responding. Receiving that letter from him was one
of the highlights of my youth.
Unfortunately, Palmeiro had been traded by the time I got the drawing back
from Damon. I didn't want to risk invoking Raffy's wrath by portraying him
in a Cubs uni, so I never sent it off to get that last autograph.
I got a few big stars to sign some things for me, but usually these players
had some sort of publicity machine in place -- my pictures of Nolan Ryan and
Dale Murphy were returned unsigned along with autographed head shots. I
remember being shocked when Jose Canseco actually sent my picture back. I
guess I thought he was a jerk even back then:
Shawon Dunston wasn't really one of my favorite players ... until he
returned my pic of him along with three
signed cards to add to my collection:
I rooted for the namesake of the Shawon-O-Meter for the rest of his career.
........................................
Fast forward 15 years. Last offseason, I decided to try my hand at
portraits once again. The subject? Who else, but Mark Prior. I didn't
know what to expect, assuming the charm of getting a drawing in the mail is
lessened when it isn't accompanied by a pleading note scribbled in a 13
year-old's handwriting.
As a happy ending to my tale, I got my sketch back from
Mark during spring training last year:
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 posted by alex at 09:40 AM | comments (5) |
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