Dylan Cease was a theatre kid, not an art kid, in high school. But the Toronto Blue Jays star pitcher’s artistic output has landed him in the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The AGO shop launched a limited edition retail collection of Cease’s artwork — a painting that’s a nod to Toronto on display in Walker Court — on Tuesday. The collection includes prints, postcards, T-shirts, sweatshirts and totes, with the proceeds going to support the AGO’s charitable mission.
“I never took art in high school, I did theatre, so I don’t know,” Cease said when asked what his teachers may have thought of his work. “They probably have a lot of critiques of it, but it is what it is.”
Kids from summer camps were brought in to sit as Cease spoke about art.
Meanwhile, there was a lineup of Blue Jays fans, young and old, that stretched almost two blocks. “It’s pretty mind-blowing to come up and see the line and just see the press,” he said. “It just feels very big in a lot of ways I wasn’t expecting.
“I honestly would have never thought in a million years that I would be doing anything even remotely close to this.”
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Cease began painting in 2022 and has done artwork for former San Diego teammate Michael King’s charity, with this Toronto piece also being framed in Jays manager John Schneider’s office.
“It’s funny, a lot of my teammates will say ‘why don’t you paint yourself pitching’ and this and that. And I’m like, you guys know I can’t draw,” Cease said. “I have to do something extremely abstract because I’m a little limited with my abilities, but I make do with what I have.”
Cease said he was inspired by the idea of spending the majority of his 30s in Toronto. The 30-year-old signed a seven-year, $210-million US contract in free agency this past winter.
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Cease said he’s taken the time to learn about Canadian culture, history and politics, but stopped short of offering a take on the back-and-forth trade war between the U.S. and Canada.
After doing this painting with acrylics, he plans to learn oil painting next. And he’s putting no pressure on himself.
“It really just makes me happy, helps me feel good about life, helps me have something that’s, I guess, opposite from baseball in the sense baseball’s more warlike,” he said.
“And painting’s more forgiving in the sense, I can just go put whatever I want on there and I’m not having to be perfect I’m just having fun and enjoying it so I think it’s helps me balance my life and balance myself in a lot of ways.”
“Ultimately, whether it ends up here or in my bathroom, I’m going to enjoy doing it,” he added.
