Artist Cuts Up Baseball Cards, Turns Them Into Art

SAN DIEGO (TNA) -- Some people consider baseball cards an investment but San Diego artist LaVern Brock prefers to see them as paintings.

Brock 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.

Artist LaVern Brock's Tony Gwynn collage goes for about $5000.

Each piece costs at least $5000 and it’s a lot of work.

Brock needs at least four weeks to complete each work and much of that time is spent combing through his collection of thousands of cards trying to find the right era and the right players.

Sometimes, that means cutting up a valuable card in the name of art.

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.

Brocksays he prefers to limit his collages to baseball cards 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.

Portions of this article originally appeared in Wireless Flash News Service.