If a national election were held in America for the title of “Sport Art’s Troubadour,” Opie Otterstad surely would be the winning candidate. A prolific painter of historic athletic events, Opie, as he signs his artworks, takes to the road for about three-quarters of his working year to visit patrons, models, and fellow artists. The trips help him keep up-to-date on their lives and give him the opportunity to swap business information and tall tales with the famous sports figures who have become his friends. An intense travel schedule is an essential part of Opie’s creative process because his paintings are not only about varied types of sports that he loves but also about the people inside those sports. He describes his process of creating art in terms of developing relationships. To Opie, paintings are stories, and the characters in them must be known well to be shown well.
“Contemplating paintings, everyone can create a story at the will of his imagination and with a single glance have his soul invaded by the most profound recollections.” ~ Paul Gaugin; www.artquotes.net
Jimmy Rollins
Born in Texas in 1970, Opie recalls that his first affirmation of artistic talent came at age three in response to a drawing he did during a church sermon. After the service, his preacher father commented that Opie’s drawing “looked just like the transfiguration.” He realized that he could communicate through his art and became motivated to pursue it. Ongoing encouragement came from his grandmother, a painter who allowed Opie to sit beside her easel as she worked. When other children were playing outside, he often stayed inside to watch and learn. Many years later well into an impressive professional career, Opie would present his grandmother with an artist’s palette inscribed with the words, “To my first inspiration.”
After graduating from St. Olaf College in Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art and also in Psychology, he went on to earn his master’s in Psychology. This fascination with psychology surfaces in his work through his dedication to learning about his subjects and including their personal stories in his paintings. A chance meeting with Dr. Fran Pirozzolo, a leading sports psychologist, led to her support of his creative work through referrals to athlete clients and urging him to select sport art as his career focus. This career would take him far from Texas into the exciting world of professional sports stars and celebrities to create portraits of individuals and teams alike at their most celebrated moments.
“On the road again, Goin’ places that I’ve never been, Seein’ things that I may never see again…” ~ Willie Nelson, Texas songwriter
Jeter
Opie takes considerable time to get to know his patrons, and this process can trigger the need for extended cross country road trips to visit his subjects where they live. He sees the development of relationships between artists and subjects as characteristic of a past era. He enjoys the exploration of America that is part of his research and the mutual bonds that develop over the years.
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” ~ C.S. Lewis; www.thinkexist.com
It was during one of his cross country trips that a legendary ball player knighted him into the inner world of professional sports buddies by giving him a new nickname. Opie was visiting with some of his baseball clients in New York, including talking with Reggie Jackson, the celebrated Hall of Fame right fielder who now is a special advisor to the New York Yankees. Years ago, Jackson had been given the sports moniker, “Mr. October,” for his clutch hitting in the post season. Jackson told Opie he needed a nickname. He asked if Opie knew anyone else whose initials were two O’s. Opie said he didn’t. Jackson proclaimed, “Then you’re ‘Double Aught.’”
Jeter
Opie has found a large and profitable professional niche with his work about baseball. For his creative innovations and significant contributions to the world of sport art, the United States Sports Academy named Opie the 2006 Sport Artist of the Year. Opie stops by annually to visit at the Academy’s Alabama campus on his way to or from visiting his clients in the “Grapefruit Leagues” in Florida as well as other East Coast leagues.
All these exciting travels don’t slow down Opie’s production rate. His exceptional work ethic has resulted in his creating more than 800 paintings since 1993. Married with one child, Opie lives and has a studio in Austin, Texas. With characteristic persistence and intense energy, he manages family life and his remarkable level of artistic creativity while still hitting the trail that calls to him to visit his stimulating friends for much of the year.
“What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It’s the too huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” ~ Jack Kerouac, author of ‘On the Road;’ www.thinkexist.com
Ghost RunnersAndy’s World
Style & Inspiration
Opie Otterstad – “Double Aught” – 2006 Sport Artist of the Year
“My personal mission is to widen my scope so that the art that I don’t understand becomes part of my vision. I think I got this as a child from my mother who took me along on her frequent visits to museums. She was an Iowa farm girl who believed devoutly that she could increase her cultural understanding by viewing great art.” ~ Opie Otterstad
Celtics Finals
During his travels when Otterstad arrives in a new city, he heads straight for the art galleries and museums. He likes to learn about new artists and absorb valuable knowledge from the old masters. According to a popular aphorism about art imitation, “Minor artists borrow ideas. Great artists steal.” Otterstad has no interest in copying complete styles of other painters, but he does find it enlightening to experiment with certain parts of other artists’ techniques. “I like borrowing little influences to try them out, like seeing through their eyes.”
Black Sox
While not wanting to paint exactly as Rembrandt painted, Otterstad finds one of Rembrandt’s characteristic techniques very useful. Rembrandt often began his works by creating a black or dark brown background. This process has proved to be one of Opie’s favorite ways to begin a painting. His early works were composed on white or light yellow grounds. Now he finds that starting with a black ground adds a powerful depth and interesting sense of light to his paintings.
Opie also experiments with different tools of his trade to find the ones that give his technique the most power. Rigorously trained in representational techniques, he has the skill to paint photo-realistic portraits and scenes. However, as he describes below, he prefers a different route to increase the impact of his work:
Sculpture
“Using defined tools like brushes, I have the ability to be precise and paint exact representational images, but that doesn’t give me the most pleasing results. I learned a technique from the Post-Impressionists for freeing your painting style. I purposely take control away when I forego the paintbrushes and pick up a palette knife. Painting with a palette knife, I have no precise control. The paint controls more of what I do. The paint surprises me. Then I’m happier with the results. Interestingly, the same kind of process works in my life. The more I let go of controlling everything, the happier I am with the results.”
In the late 1980’s Otterstad began painting professionally at a time when mainstream art was shifting from predominantly conceptual styles to Pluralism, that is, a lack of dominance by any one style. Modernist Pluralism came out of earlier Surrealism that employed a juxtaposition of seemingly opposing elements painted in realistic techniques to create a new emotional vision that included symbols and mythic references. Using realistic painting to communicate emotional messages was part of the techniques of several artists that Opie lists as major influences on his style, including Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon, Philip Guston, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
“Precision is not the opposite of mystery.” ~ Louise Gluck; www.powersofobservation.com
Ali
The results of Opie’s efforts have brought him commissions from individual athletes, teams, and sports organizations in every sports field, including golf, boxing, cycling, ice hockey, and football, with patrons filling his order docket to overflowing from sports stars, businesses, actors, and music celebrities. His assignments include commissions to paint former Houston Astros’ pitcher, Roger Clemems, and former Astro, Nolan Ryan, as well as tributes to the birthday of San Francisco Giants manager, Felipe Alou, and the 20th anniversary of basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers 1985 championship series with the Celtics. Besides commemorating historic athletic events for generations to come, Opie hopes that part of the results of his work will be to bridge a divide between the worlds of sport and art that he believes are mistakenly seen as unrelated. This point of view echoes the Olympic code that promotes sport and art as two aspects of a balanced character. He also champions the role of representational art in transmitting as profound a message as abstract art can.
“I am trying to show the world of sport that art can take some thought without being incomprehensible. With a love of the spirit of the athlete and telling the story of sports in our time, I am trying to show the world of art that sometimes depth of character and thought can be expressed with tangible imagery.” ~ Opie Otterstad, www.opieart.com
Shaquile O’Neal
Along with his extensive experience painting individual portraits, landscapes, jazz music themes, and all kinds of sports themes, Double Aught has become especially well-known for his paintings about the quintessentially American sport of baseball. Opie was commissioned by Major League Baseball to paint several World Series Championship team paintings. Always supportive of the home team, he also is the official artist of the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame.
In keeping with his respect for history and his love of surprises and mystery, Opie has become known for often adding an extra layer of history into his paintings by under-painting or shadow-painting characters into scenes that are usually only visible on close inspection. In Opie’s painting, “Ghostrunners,” an attentive viewer can see the pale ghosts of famous baseball players standing on the bases near the children. Even when engaged in a friendly backyard pastime on a drowsy afternoon, sports fans of all stripes are linked to the history of the greats as they dream of following the great ones. The shadow images also contribute another layer of emotional texture and veracity to the painting when they remind us that most Hall of Fame giants that we idolize from afar today started out just this way, as little boys and girls in small town games hoping to live up to the examples of their heroes.
Opie’s love of sport and its history shows in his celebrated paintings and keeps his work in high demand. His love of home and roots shows in all his artworks. Infected with that characteristically American drive to explore whatever shimmers beyond the next horizon, he also loves the life of an itinerant artist, travelling America, being Sport Art’s Troubadour, visiting his friends, swapping stories, and spreading his enthusiasm for the achievements of his subjects and for the enlightening powers of art.
“Why think about that when all the golden land’s ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?” ~ Jack Kerouac; www.thinkexist.com
Babe Fenceboard
Ruth and Kids
Key Sport Works & World Influence
Opie Otterstad – “DOUBLE AUGHT” – 2006 SPORT ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Self
Celebrated artworks by the prolific Opie Otterstad have been exhibited in museums, galleries, sports halls of fame, international exhibitions, and private collections. A few of his more than 800 paintings, including many commemoration series, are listed here.
Yankee Celebration 09 – New York Yankees’ 27th World Series victory
Ali
Derek Jeter – Painting/Assemblage, including a Lou Gehrig model bat, a Derek Jeter gamer, a Yankee Jersey, s sliver of a game-used Gehrig bat, Yankee dirt from both stadiums, and a fine piece of ash
The Astros 300 Home Run Club – Lance Berkman, Carlos Lee, and Pudge Rodriguez becoming the first players in history to reach the 300 career home run mark for the same team in the same season
The Phillies Roster World Series Painting
The Last All Star Game at Yankee Stadium
The Sox Invade Houston
The Rolling Stones Show at POP! International Gallery
