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Artist cuts up baseball cards, turns them into art

By David Moye

July 3, 2006

Ocean Beach--Some people consider baseball cards an investment but Ocean Beach artist LaVern Brock prefers to see them as paintings.

Brock is an Arizona transplant who has found a way to combine his love of baseball cards with his love for art by turning old cards into brand new photo collages.

For instance, Brock has made a card collage of Tony Gwynn’s Padres jersey using cards from every single Padre player that he played with. And he’s also done one of Greg Maddux, using practically every card ever featuring the future Hall of Fame pitcher.

For instance, Brock recently finished a piece dedicated to the Los Angeles Dodgers and that meant cutting up a Sandy Koufax card worth a few hundred dollars.

But it’s worth it when he sees the customer’s reaction. For instance, Brock says when he showed his Gwynn collage to the man himself, Mr. Padre spent ten minutes talking about each of the players who were in the collage.

Brock is currently working on a piece dedicated to the Boston Red Sox and says he prefers to limit his collages to baseball because, quite simply, “There are more baseball cards available than with the NFL, NBA or NHL. I don’t use duplicate cards – ever.”

Although Brock is making a living as a card artist, he still dreams of the places he can go.

“I’d like to do pieces for every ballpark in America or, at least, have a touring exhibit.”

For more information on Brock’s work, check out www.baseballcardart.com

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