December 26, 2011

Amelie Mancini's Left Field Cards

Amelie Mancini is a painter and printmaker. She lives in Brooklyn and roots for the Mets. And she draws, carves, and prints baseball cards - one by one - on an ancient Washington hand press located in the basement of a church in Greenpoint.

Here are four cards from the initial series - Bizarre Injuries:
Future sets from Left Field Cards will include Edible All-Stars, Remarkable Mustaches, and Men With A Van.
Mancini answered a few questions about her art and her introduction to baseball via email:
I'm originally a painter and I had just finished a big series of paintings about ballplayers as the modern gods and heros of our times which you can see here. After that series I wanted to do something very different, light, silly, easy, small. With painting the process is usually long and demanding. Printmaking seemed, to the novice I was, easy and fast, even if of course it's not that simple. The idea of baseball cards in a postcard size came naturally. I didn't see the point in simply listing the best players of all time so I went for the silly, quirky approach.

The cards are linocuts: they're printed from linoleum blocks that I carve after drawing on them. I then print them on a letterpress one by one. Everything is hand made, by me, one card at a time. On the back of the cards there is a postcard design with room for a note and stamp. The idea is that you can mail the cards to the baseball persons in your life, or frame them, whatever you like.

I became a Mets fan after a couple of friends took me to Shea Stadium in September 2007 to see the Mets lose to the Phillies. I had no notion of baseball back then and spent the evening asking dumb questions and eating hot dogs, but I had lots of fun. It took me another year of watching games and talking to people and reading about it before I fully realize what a terrible mistake I had made by choosing the Mets. By then it was too late. I'm a loyal fan.

4 comments:

johngoldfine said...

I checked out the whole series--and they're very droll. I sent the link along to a young admirer of the 3 Stooges....

Jere said...

I found all the cards/pics she based her Injuries set on. It's fun to compare....

Barberie

Barmes

Boggs

Eaton

Hill

Mitchell (this one I'm not sure of/closest I could find)

Mulholland

Ryan

Smoltz

Zumaya

laura k said...

Beautiful work!

laura k said...

I became a Mets fan after a couple of friends took me to Shea Stadium in September 2007 to see the Mets lose to the Phillies.

This is funny. It's like it said that on the tickets, or like her friends said, Let's go to Shea to see the Mets lose to the Phillies!