A mitt was designed to hold a baseball, but it can hold so much more.
Like the memories my Dad shared with me about playing baseball as a teenager in Detroit, making All-City, and later pitching while serving in the Air Force. This glove traveled from pitcher's mounds around Michigan to an American air base in England before eventually ending up on a basement shelf in St. Clair.
That's the essence of American Material Memory. An ordinary object survives long enough to become something more—a witness to the people, places, and moments that shaped a family's life.
From the Artist
Back in the day, my Dad was a pitcher in a Detroit baseball league. The story he always told was that after being drafted into the Air Force, he ended up stationed at an American bomber base somewhere in England. The camp commandant needed a pitcher for the base baseball team, and my Dad had been All-City.
So sometime in the 1950s, he found himself serving his country as both a jet mechanic and a pitcher.
This was his three-finger glove.
I have no idea how he caught a baseball in this thing.
I tried using it during my first weeks of Little League, but because I didn't have a proper mitt, they made me a backup catcher. Each team had its own catcher's equipment—including a mitt—so that's where I ended up.
Funny how things come about because of what you do or don't have.
I became a catcher because I didn't have a mitt.
Eventually, I saved up enough money to buy my own Rawlings. But I kept my Dad's old glove. Decades later, I drew it as a way of remembering everything it had seen and been a part of.
Because some things need to be remembered.
And some stories need to be shared.
A mitt was designed to hold a baseball, but it can hold so much more.
Like the memories my Dad shared with me about playing baseball as a teenager in Detroit, making All-City, and later pitching while serving in the Air Force. This glove traveled from pitcher's mounds around Michigan to an American air base in England before eventually ending up on a basement shelf in St. Clair.
That's the essence of American Material Memory. An ordinary object survives long enough to become something more—a witness to the people, places, and moments that shaped a family's life.
From the Artist
Back in the day, my Dad was a pitcher in a Detroit baseball league. The story he always told was that after being drafted into the Air Force, he ended up stationed at an American bomber base somewhere in England. The camp commandant needed a pitcher for the base baseball team, and my Dad had been All-City.
So sometime in the 1950s, he found himself serving his country as both a jet mechanic and a pitcher.
This was his three-finger glove.
I have no idea how he caught a baseball in this thing.
I tried using it during my first weeks of Little League, but because I didn't have a proper mitt, they made me a backup catcher. Each team had its own catcher's equipment—including a mitt—so that's where I ended up.
Funny how things come about because of what you do or don't have.
I became a catcher because I didn't have a mitt.
Eventually, I saved up enough money to buy my own Rawlings. But I kept my Dad's old glove. Decades later, I drew it as a way of remembering everything it had seen and been a part of.
Because some things need to be remembered.
And some stories need to be shared.
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