✘ & the
aria collective
aria collective
artist profile of ✘
The world's 1st Ice Cream Glove was dreamed up by a 10 year old baseball player, ✘. Some years later after a life dedicated to the game, ✘ brought it from idea, to the diamond. A baseball player turned artist, ✘ set out to reimagine his passion for the game as functional art with a dream of bringing more fun and imagination to sports.
As a player and fan himself, to be art, "it has to both tell a story and have the quality to perform at the highest level." This is why the product started on pro players hands like Luke Weaver first, because if it wasn't good enough to be used by the best, then it wasn't ready to be used by anybody. Initially having a goal to collaborate as an artist and simply share his glove designs with a glove brand to have them make them, ✘ was told by a brand executive that it was "an absolutely ridiculous idea and players don't care about money or how a glove looks, they only care how it performs." This was enough to ignite the competitive athlete in ✘ driving him to master the art of the glove to put the power in the players hands and pave the way to "the players glove." A glove that gives self expression, pays the signed players fairly, and brings world class professional level performance.
After reimagining the baseball glove and seeing it in a way that nobody has before, ✘ launched the first 3 Ice Cream Glove flavors and the world's first Taco Glove before the idea for the collective came to be.
With a goal of bringing more fun and self expression to athletes and fans, ✘ and the ARiA Collective set out to make every idea become an immersive experience bringing sports, art, fashion, music and entertainment together as one to enhance the game that he loves by growing the games interest outside of the common fanbase. To pull this off, ✘ needed to not only reimagine his art, but also reimagine the way that art was created and the way people viewed sports.
The idea was to create a collaborative team to help bring his ideas to life in a way that they could make hundreds of them come to life each year. This would take a team and a new system to create art collaboratively. The formation of the ARiA Collective to collectively help bring the imagination of ✘ from imaginary to reality was formed.
Leading the overarching art & creative behind alias of ✘, he lays out the vision and works hand in hand with each individual collective member to bring together the product, story, visuals, sound and eventual unveiling to the world of what was imagined by ✘ and executed through this collaborative team approach of the ARiA Collective.
Follow ✘ on Instagram: Click Here
Absolutely Ridiculous Documentary Coming Soon...
Director of Culture
Baseball's brightest young star, and member of the ARiA Collective, is helping shape the future of the game through style, art, music and entertainment...
marika lyszczyk
Pitcher/Catcher | Baseball Player
'22 Glove: Strawberry Ice Cream Glove & Bible Catcher's Glove
*15+ others are also wearing ARiA Gloves that we're unable to publicize at this time due to group licensing rules.