by Keith L. Martin | Staff Writer
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. Actually, underneath it all, it’s a baseball.
From chickens to aircraft, ice cream sundaes to beehives, few ideas have been repeated among the 776 pieces of art that comprise the Frederick Arts Council’s ‘‘Art’s a Ball!” project.
The Frederick Keys baseball team donated 1,000 baseballs for the project, and the creations generated by professional and amateur artists have left organizers overwhelmed.
‘‘Everyone started with the same object, but were able to envision something else,” Shuan Butcher, executive director of the Frederick Arts Council, said. ‘‘I think this project appealed to the artist in all of us ... The result is the exciting thing because it is what art is all about.”
In April, the council and the Keys announced the baseball-themed public art project as a follow-up to last year’s ‘‘Keys to Frederick” project that generated more than $40,000 in grants to local arts organizations.
In the last two months, artists of all kinds paid $10 for a blank baseball and returned it to the council in exchange for two tickets to the Keys’ game on Aug. 29, the second annual ‘‘Art in the Park” event where the baseballs will be on display.
Butcher said the response has been overwhelming. Nine public and private schools took hundreds of baseballs and even the 25 Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in Emmitsburg participated. In addition to the council’s own ‘‘painting parties,” Butcher said families, businesses and other groups came in to buy multiple baseballs for events of their own.
‘‘This became a real community building experience,” he said. ‘‘... In terms of what’s come back, I never envisioned some of these ideas, but that is what’s neat about this. Each person had their own experiences, ideas and thoughts.”
The results include various plays on words – there are three unique ‘‘fly balls” – as well as ones designed by local politicians and signed by celebrities. In some pieces, a keen eye is needed to find the baseball at all.
Frederick artist Michael Dean created a baseball-themed key for last year’s event and decided to meld his love for the game and local history into this year’s submission.
Three baseballs sit atop five multi-colored bats with home plate serving as its ‘‘base.” On each ball and bat are the last names of the eight professional baseball players born in Frederick. The bats – damaged in Keys’ batting practice and donated by the team - identify players from the 1800s, the balls from those in the 1900s.
‘‘From doing the baseball key, I learned the history of players who originated in Frederick,” Dean said. ‘‘... I think the whole project shows that art has no boundaries.”
Whitney Bingham, owner of The Muse in downtown Frederick and a member of the Arts Council’s board of directors, used quilted coffee filters as a decorated frame with her baseball, adorned in pieces of cheesecloth for a classic piece. ‘‘I’m personally shocked I could be inspired by a baseball,” she said. ‘‘... This project got so many people involved and shows so much talent.”
On July 1, the baseballs will begin their display at locations around Frederick, from Bingham’s window front to the Weinberg Center for the Arts and various BB&T branches. They will remain on display until Aug. 15. On Aug. 29, 250 will be available in an online and live auction to coincide with Art in the Park.
Nearly 800 baseballs have come back as art pieces, but Butcher said the council will offer the remaining 200 for those inspired by what they see after July 1 to meet the project’s goal of 1,000 decorated baseballs.
‘Art’ by the numbers
776: Number of decorated baseballs as of June 26
224: Balls still available for designs until Aug. 29
20: Possible display locations across Frederick
9: Public and private schools participating
6: Number of Maryland counties and states represented
For more information on ‘‘Art’s a Ball!” visit www.frederickartscouncil.org.
