'Number Eleven and the Four Elements' featuring Barry Larkin

  Inspiration for this Painting of World Series Champ and Hall of Famer, Barry Larkin, came pretty strait forward for me mostly sparked by recollections of the hometown superstar shortstop shining in his "Queen City's" Riverfront Stadium/Cinergy Field when it glowed full circle and as it transformed through the birth of the new Great American Ballpark that was being constructed just past center field of old Riverfront during the later part of his many outstanding years dedicated to the Cincinnati Reds.

  After finishing this painting and reviewing the layers of designs filling the canvas and its four corners I started to see that, for me, symbolically it brought to mind the four 'classical elements' which are: earth, air, water and fire. ...So I decided to call this piece "Number Eleven and the Four Elements".

​  I have been enjoying painting the subject of baseball and have a collection of blogs and artwork about it here on this website. { My latest piece prior to this one: "The Timeless Charlie Hustle and the Geometry of a Rose" }  Baseball is a particularly interesting sport to me probably mainly because in the big picture it is the only ballgame I can think of that instead of dividing the playing field in half with the aim of running to one side or the other, baseball's goal is to come full circle. I think the aim of coming full circle by reaching out to touch all four corners of a diamond field in effort to come around to what is called "home" is a pretty profound and meaningful design for a game.

​  Here are some photos from different corners of the "Number Eleven and the Four Elements" canvas:

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​Memories of Riverfront/Cinergy

  Some old pictures and memories of Riverfront Stadium ( later called Cinergy Field ) that, along with impressions of shortstop star Barry Larkin, helped me color the painting…  { Many of these pictures I simply found through google images.}

​  Two of the main things I remember about Riverfront: The wavy walking ramp that went up and down and all around the stadium and the layers of rainbow colored seats...

  Some pics of when the section beyond the outfield was cut out and construction of the new stadium began just past the homerun wall…

​  A pic of my little Joey at the second-to-last Opening Day at Riverfront/Cinergy Field where you can see the construction of the new ballpark beginning just past the outfield...  

  My kids, Sam & Joe, going into the Reds game for the very last night game at Riverfront/Cinergy Field the evening of September 21, 2002:

  Before the eventual implosion of the stadium, the multi-colored seats were taken out and became collector’s pieces as memorabilia of the many exciting years at Riverfront/Cinergy which began for me in 1970, the year it was constructed.

​  Some seats and a slice of the old AstroTurf field from Riverfront/Cinergy that we have in our basement along with some of my Reds artwork including my “Diamond on the River” painting of the new Great American Ballpark that was built just past the outfield of Cinergy Field.  Also pictured on the wall is my bobblehead painting of The Big Red Machine with Riverfront Stadium behind them.

​  In the end of December 2002, Riverfront/Cinergy was imploded.  In addition to some still frames, footage from many different angles can be found capturing the action of the ballfield going down in a ring of smoke.  ( Here’s just an example of some video I found on YouTube. ) 

​  Memories as well as some old seating charts became inspiration for my painting...

​  A Riverfront Stadium/Cinergy Field Reds uniform commemorative patch that Barry Larkin and his teammates wore during their 2002 season became one of the little artifacts that I incorporated into the painting…

​A few process pictures that I captured while spinning out the circles in this painting...​

Barry Larkin: "Number Eleven and the Four Elements"

Find more artwork with Barry Larkin in "My Wire-to-Wire Summer with Twelve Stars"