orange peels and baseballs

For any baseball fans out there, and for a fine example of combining 2 unrelated things for the non-fans, check out this week's SI feature on 67-year-old artist Ben Sakoguchi, who has painted striking images of baseball icons and characters in the style of old-school orange crate labels. File this under things you'd never think would be combined but somehow it just all makes sense once you see it.


The article states that these beautiful labels were used on wooden orange crates until 1955, and with the rise of cardboard they disappeared. Mr. Sakoguchi discovered the labels had become collectables in the 1970s, and started to play around with the style. He found it easier to broach touchy subjects - like slavery, historic mistakes - with the format:

"When I paint with these labels... it's disarming, no matter the subject. People don't want to be lectured about politics or race, so I use images and colors that soften the blow"