Former NFL star, Baron Batch, is now channeling his other passion: art.
Forceful, frenzied color, forming graphic illustrative playful, yet thought-provoking images adorn artist Baron Batch’s Homestead studio. In the front room, the reclaimed wooden tables and bar makes it feel like you stepped into the hippest new hangout. In contrast, a bathtub of crumpled paint tubes sits in the backroom and work tables are plastered with color.
“My job as an artist is to put myself out there so people hear about me. As an artist that’s your job, to be seen!” Batch gestures with a big celebrity smile.
This is Baron Batch’s crib, a comfortable place where he hatches ideas and transfers them to color. Baron’s limitless imagination and ambition is as spirited as the day he launched his goals to be a football player and an artist growing up in Texas.
“Most people say I got a book, I believe this, I am going to school for this, and I am going to marry like this. I don’t fucking know,” proclaims Batch arms open wide. “It makes me feel alive the fact that I don’t know. I am an artist right now, the thing I said I was going to be in elementary.”
In his youth, Baron’s teacher told him to pick a more realistic occupation than that of artist or football player. At the age of 26, Batch has done both with rock-star status.
“People see an artist like a rock star, but what they are is a person who likes to make art, for them it’s very weird. But I have played at that level, I have been a rock-star when I played in the NFL, and now I am an artist.”
Baron is also a modern day philosopher, weaving a tornado of spellbinding prose that is reflected onto canvas as his signature motto “Free.” His personal branding began first as a talented football player, and then as a passionate artist has also given birth to his ad agency Studio AM and interior design services. Coupled with his vibrant art, he and his staff create furniture pieces that double as installations. He also performs live action paintings alongside the Pittsburgh Symphony. Pop-X is his own branding of the post-Pop Art movement of expressionism, based on Warhol’s model.
He chose to stay in Pittsburgh after nearly three years as a Steeler because he exclaims, “I know what an oil boom looks like and Pittsburgh is prime.”
During his life as a football player his most valuable lesson was about the art of business. He presented himself with sincerity and determination that remains his backbone.
“I was strategizing. I did nothing that anybody else can’t do. That’s why I say anyone can be an artist, if you are not an artist; you are not doing it right, if you want to be. You learn how to manipulate life. You learn how to make moves and jockey for position. And move without money.”
At the core of the question what made Baron Batch, a juxtaposition of strength and grit with sensitivity of emotional hues, is one word that he repeats as a chorus: circumstance.
“Circumstance. Circumstance,” chants Baron. “I could never afford it. Paint is expensive. I could never afford it until I was in the NFL. I want to wear colors all over, like this is my wealth, to be able to afford paint. So I am going to dress like that wherever I go.” He tugs at his paint splattered jeans.
Growing up on the opposite end of the proverbial tracks he valued his freedom and being out in the open. “Even though I was broke, I could do whatever I wanted. I saw my friends envy those who had all this money. Most kids never are in that dynamic, they are the coveted ones, but they never see the freedom of being without.”
In the past year as he put down the football and picked up his brushes, he opened a door in his mind that couldn’t be closed. He is luminescent with the energy and to hear him speak you can’t help to see that ferocity as also part of his art.
“Life made me an artist, that’s why. My work and I are the same thing.”
For more on Baron Batch and his art visit: baronbatch.com
