{"id":2343,"date":"2019-11-02T23:04:35","date_gmt":"2019-11-02T23:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/?p=2343"},"modified":"2019-11-02T23:40:16","modified_gmt":"2019-11-02T23:40:16","slug":"crafting-nostalgia-sean-kane-and-his-painted-gloves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/2019\/11\/02\/crafting-nostalgia-sean-kane-and-his-painted-gloves\/","title":{"rendered":"CRAFTING NOSTALGIA: SEAN KANE AND HIS PAINTED GLOVES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CRAFTING NOSTALGIA: <\/em>SEAN KANE AND HIS PAINTED GLOVES <\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BY CHRIS TIESSEN\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018So you\u2019re basically in the Hall of Fame, then?,\u2019 I inquire with equal parts wonderment and envy \u2013 my eyes as big as baseballs. It\u2019s a question I never thought I\u2019d be posing on such a gorgeous autumn morning. Or on any morning, for that matter. After all, it\u2019s a rare day that you get to meet a Hall of Famer. \u2018Well,\u2019 Sean replies, \u2018not me, per se. But\u00a0without hesitation, I shoot back (sincerely): \u2018Good enough for me.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m hanging with Guelph-based illustrator and artist Sean Kane in his home studio \u2013 a brightly-lit space located in the basement of his cute Hospital Hill neighbourhood home. The place is cool \u2013 \u2018mid-century modern\u2019 cool. The living room chairs. Kitchen table. Heck, even the bungalow\u2019s carport seems\u2028to hearken back to some brief golden age. An era of starched white shirts, brill cream, and unapologetic sentimentality. And Sean? He completes the aesthetic perfectly. His perfectly coifed hair. Strong chin. Thick- rimmed glasses. A sort of Clark Kent meets the cast of \u2018Leave it to Beaver\u2019 type, I think to myself as we sit chatting about his work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Which is why I\u2019m here. To talk about Sean\u2019s work. Magical objects that speak to a boy like me; that is, one who spent his formative years (on the one hand) touring the galleries and museums of Europe and (on the other) listening to Tom Cheek and Jerry Howarth call Jays\u2019 games in the confines of his childhood bedroom. \u2018I call them hand painted baseball glove art,\u2019 Sean tells me when I ask how he describes the phenomenal objects on display in front of me, \u2018that merge detailed painted portraits of a well-known ball player with graphical illustrations of his career stats and highlights.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fair enough. I\u2019d describe them a bit differently, though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, Sean\u2019s painted gloves serve as shrines of nostalgia. Monstrances of reminiscence. Relics\u2028of wistfulness. Take, for instance, the glove Sean handcrafted as an homage to (in-)famous early twentieth-century White Sox star, \u2018Shoeless\u2019 Joe Jackson. Everything about this extraordinary artifact evokes a sense of remembrance \u2013 from the period- correct fielder\u2019s mitt that serves as the piece\u2019s canvas, to the black-and-white portrait of Jackson in mid- swing, to the vintage font Kane uses to spell out the hall of famer\u2019s name on painted bygone scroll. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018The research component comprises a large part of each piece,\u2019 Sean notes when I ask about his creative process. \u2018It\u2019s important that each glove I source for a particular project is both period-correct and position- correct, and that it reflects whether the player is [or, in cases like Kane\u2019s Jackson piece, was] right- or left-handed. I draw inspiration for each glove from any number of sources,\u2019 he adds, \u2018including ticket stubs, cigar boxes, movie posters and other historical ephemera.\u2019 Sean concludes: \u2018I want each finished item to function as a sort of time machine \u2013 to summon a particular time and place for its audience.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audiences that have included some pretty heavy hitters (pardon the pun). Like the Philadelphia Phillies\u2019 former all-star, Ryan \u2018The Big Piece\u2019 Howard, who was given one of Sean\u2019s gloves by the major league club\u2028in homage to his brilliant career. Or the Cubs\u2019 hall of famer, Andre \u2018The Hawk\u2019 Dawson, who cherishes the glove Kane made for him. Or the Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 Cecil Cooper, who displays the glove Sean crafted for him on his mantle \u2013 between his Roberto Clemente Award (awarded 1983) and two Gold Gloves (awarded 1979, 1980). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sean and his gloves didn\u2019t always enjoy such celebrity, though. Indeed, there was a time not so long ago that this former full-time editorial illustrator from Chicago wasn\u2019t even sure he would be able to make a living as an artist. Indeed, during the financial meltdown in 2008 Sean watched as work dried up. \u2018The crash affected everything,\u2019 he tells me, \u2018and so I had to look for something outside editorial illustration as a means to make a living.\u2019 It was then that he turned to painting gloves \u2013 combining his love of baseball with his skills as an artist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sean remembers hustling his first prototypes to major league executives at the 2012 winter baseball meetings in Nashville, Tennessee.\u2028\u2018I built a custom glass case,\u2019 he recalls, \u2018that I wore on my back throughout the meetings. Inside, I mounted three of my earliest gloves.\u2019 Guerrilla marketing at its best. \u2018I honestly didn\u2019t know whether anyone would take me or my creative concepts seriously. And yet, by the end of the meetings, my gloves earned attention from MLB Radio and NBC Sports, and were even featured on the ESPN Christmas list.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the rest, as they say, is history. Nowadays, Sean handcrafts about twenty gloves a year for major league teams, individual players, and private sports memorabilia collectors. He\u2019s got an upcoming solo show of his work at his alma mater, Butler University. And, as I mentioned at the top of this story, he\u2019s in the hall of fame. Or his glove is, at least. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is good enough for me, I remind him. \u2018And me,\u2019 Sean laughs.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    CRAFTING NOSTALGIA: SEAN KANE AND HIS PAINTED GLOVES  BY CHRIS TIESSEN\u00a0 \u2018So you\u2019re basically in the Hall of Fame, then?,\u2019 I inquire with equal parts wonderment and envy \u2013 my eyes as big as baseballs. It\u2019s a question I never thought I\u2019d be posing on such a gorgeous autumn morning. Or on any morning, for that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[82,94,4,120,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-guelph","category-hand-crafted","category-issue-9","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/1DSC_5938sm.jpg?fit=2700%2C1800&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KDF5-BN","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2354,"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions\/2354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toquemagazine.com\/hello\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}