A Conversation with the man behind Gummy Arts

Baseball Twitter is better because Mike Noren is part of it.

Noren is the brains, and the pencils, behind Gummy Arts, a Twitter account and related website that showcases hand-drawn baseball cards and lots of nostalgia. The process began in 2015 when his girlfriend  bought him a “doodle a day” calendar and he began doing some baseball drawings and posting them online.

A Site is Born

During the same time period, Mike was talking to friends and what began some fun with his buddies over drinks became a a much bigger project.

“We joked that there should be a “Cecil Cooperstown” for great players who fell short of Cooperstown but deserved to be enshrined somewhere. In January 2016, I started the Cecil Cooperstown Tumblr site, where I would post baseball card drawings of the greatest baseball players outside the Hall of Fame. I continue to add new drawings to Cecil Cooperstown a couple times a week.”

The site, along with his Twitter and Instagram feeds, are steadily growing and have become mandatory online stops for many on a daily basis. Even more impressive is the fact that Noren has a full-time job and a side hustle. Gummy Arts and the companion sites are a side gig on top of that.

“I work full time as a writer/editor, and I devote a lot of time to training/teaching Brazililan jiu-jitsu—so the time I can devote to Gummy Arts is limited. I’ll usually have an hour or two of drawing time on weeknights, and then I usually have one big drawing day per weekend, where I sit on the couch and draw for several hours while watching sports on TV.”

He tries to work ahead as much as possible so he can post things that not only look good, but are timely as well. Birthdays and anniversaries make for easy content, but they also come quickly and sometimes in large numbers.

“I generally draw as much as I can whenever I have time, and then I set the cards in a pile of drawings waiting to be posted. Once I finish a drawing, I mark the person’s birthdate (or any other noteworthy dates) in a calendar book, which I use to plan tweets. Sometimes this pile will have 15-20 drawings, other times just 2-3. Then most days I’ll just tweet the card at the top of the pile, usually while on the bus to work.”

The Cards Behind the Drawings

The inspiration behind Noren’s drawings is no secret. Like many baseball fans, he’s been collecting baseball cards for much of his life and that hobby has turned into a passion project.

“I started collecting in 1979, and I collected pretty consistently until 1990. I also accumulated a decent number of pre-1979 cards by trading with older kids in the neighborhood and going to the card shop with my dad. The ’70s cards are my favorites by far. For a long time, I regarded 1975 Topps as my favorite set, though 1974 is right there with it.”

Branching Out

In addition to drawing baseball players, Noren also mixes in figures from the worlds of music and pop culture, something that is becoming increasingly popular.

No matter who he draws or how often, Noren’s work elicits lots of memories for anyone who comes across it. He’s added t-shirts to his repertoire and hopes to do a book one day. For now we can just enjoy the drawings.

 

About the Artist:

In addition to Cecil Cooperstown, Mike Noren can be found online on Twitter  and Instagram. His work has also appeared at The National Pastime Museum.