247. "Bloodlines: Now Batting..." 7" x 10.5"

Size: 7 × 10.5 inches art print (not a comic book) Availability: Pre-order ends Sunday, June 28th at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET Shipping: Expected to ship approximately 40–60 days after the purchase window closes. Estimated timeframe. Not guaranteed. From the Artist: Pop Fly #247: "Bloodlines: Now Batting..." There’s a photograph on my phone from seven years ago that inspired this piece. I'm gonna break protocol a bit and share it here. It was taken on my son Daniel Jr.'s very first day of school... ever. What makes it so special to me isn't the event itself but a fraction of a second it accidentally captured. My hand is releasing his. He is moving forward. I am staying behind. It's his time now. Zoom in on those little chubby hands (my son's, not mine). That tiny, tiny space between them became the emotional foundation for this piece. At first I approached this piece as a traditional passing of the torch. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this wasn't about handing something over. It was about letting go. At least to me it was. In my piece, the father's hand is relaxed and open. The bat tips away from him, balanced only by the lightest grip, its weight falling forward instead of remaining balanced in his hand. The receiver hasn't fully taken it yet. He is reaching toward it, just before acceptance, just before responsibility, just before the weight becomes his. This piece isn't really about stats or records (although they are present in the piece, hidden in the barcode)... It's about that moment between the moments. The space between holding on and letting go. The crossing of a threshold from one legacy to another. Even the phrase "Now Batting..." is one of those phrases every baseball fan knows by heart. It's an introduction. An announcement. A signal that one chapter has ended and another is about to begin But more than that, it is about anyone who has ever released someone they loved beyond measure into the world and hoped they would fly even higher than they ever could. And it is about those who were entrusted with that hope. " You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable" - Kahlil Gibran