{"id":604581,"date":"2026-08-25T22:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T22:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/604581\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T22:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T22:50:16","slug":"blue-jays-ace-cease-launches-artwork-retail-collection-at-art-gallery-of-ontario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/604581\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays ace Cease launches artwork, retail collection at Art Gallery of Ontario"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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.<\/p>\n

The AGO shop launched a limited edition retail collection of Cease’s artwork \u2014 a painting that’s a nod to Toronto on display in Walker Court \u2014 on Tuesday. The collection includes prints, postcards, T-shirts, sweatshirts and totes, with the proceeds going to support the AGO’s charitable mission.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Kids from summer camps were brought in to sit as Cease spoke about art.<\/p>\n

\"EightFans wait in line to meet Toronto Blue Jays star pitcher Dylan Cease while he displays his art at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Tuesday. (Cole Burston\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“I honestly would have never thought in a million years that I would be doing anything even remotely close to this.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Cease said he was inspired by the idea of spending the majority of his 30s in Toronto. The 30-year-old signed<\/a> a seven-year, $210-million US contract in free agency this past winter.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

After doing this painting with acrylics, he plans to learn oil painting next. And he’s putting no pressure on himself.<\/p>\n

“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. <\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

“Ultimately, whether it ends up here or in my bathroom, I’m going to enjoy doing it,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-604581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}