The Alexander City Outlook

Living sports through art

Alexander City resident Warren Page is a life-long Gator fan, but he now finds solace in crimson hues.

That’s because he has combined an old talent with his love of sports. Page, who recently began creating athletic art, first painted pictures in blue and orange, but as the Tide began rising to the top, his palette turned crimson.

“Diehard as I am, it wasn’t so bad,” Page said. “In times before I would have had conflicting feelings, but this year just wasn’t our time to finish the way we wanted to. We went on a pretty good run for four years so I’m satisfied.”

Page’s latest athletic portrait features Mark Ingram with an image of the Heisman Trophy in the foreground. In the background are two of Alabama’s signature As atop a hand-painted pattern in shades of gray.

Page began drawing as a child, but had quit painting long before he made a recent visit to an art studio for beginners called Sips-n-Strokes. The work he created there, an angelic image, was given to his grandmother at Chapman’s Nursing Home.

At the home, nurses and visitors began noticing the work and making requests for it last May.

“We just used four colors,” Page said of the work. “I was like, ‘I can do this.’”

The interest caused Page to pick up a paintbrush and he hasn’t put it down since last spring. Page first began by painting pictures of Florida’s quarterback Tim Tebow marching out onto the field, and as the season progressed his friends who are Alabama fans began making requests for art.

He is not the only member of his family who has found a love of art. His father, a local pastor and popular substitute teacher at Benjamin Russell High School, actually inspired Page to paint as a child and his uncle was a popular cartoonist in the Chicago area, where his comic strips were published in the local paper.

Page said he doesn’t know if his art will ever be widely recognized, but he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. In addition to completing athletic art, Page has also begun painting abstracts and portraits.

“I just enjoy it,” Page said. “I’m going to keep doing it because I have just really gotten into it.”