09/05/2005 Pittsburgh Post Gazette/Penn State Painting

Sports2-Local artist makes use of the sports landscape for his portfolio, which includes work for the Steelers and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.by Chico Harlan

Next weekend, a local artist will stand on the sideline at Beaver Stadium before Penn State's game against Cincinnati. South Sider Johno Prascak, 46, will be on hand to present his most recent sports piece, a painting of former Penn State linebacker Adam Taliaferro. Three thousand prints of the Taliaferro painting-which depicts Taliaferro, who had recovered from a temporarily paralizing injury, leading the team form the Beaver Stadium tunnel-will be used to generate money for the Beating the Odds Foundation. But, for Prascak, this is just the latest of his sports paintings. Though only half of his work deals with sports, that half often takes on a familiar texture: black and gold. He spoke with Penn State beat writer Chico Harlan.
Q:What's the appeal of sports a as subject for your art? Prascak: I love sports. I love it all. My style has been described as very fluid, a lot of motion, and sports is perfect for that, because it almost jumps right off the canvas.
Q: What's your background in painting? Prascak: I started painting as a hobbyist in 1983, but I had been sick for 10 years with ulcerative colitis. I suffered for 10,years with that, but it takes on varying degrees, and on scale of 1-10, mine was an 11. Cancer was starting to set in. ...I started painting through all that. I call it my second chance. I kept doing it as a hobby, but at some point I wanted to do it [for a living]. I was like, I gotta see if I can sink or swim.
Q: I noticed you've worked on a painting of Heinz Field Prascak: That was my first commission, actually, and it put me on the map. It was a year before the stadium opened, so the [Steelers] gave me the actual architectural drawings, and the merchandise people, Mr. Rooney, they instructed me to make the place come alive. It was a high, a natural high. And now that painting hangs in Heinz Field, in the Steeler lobby. It's the only piece of artwork there. People have seen that painting for a long time now. Maybe they don't know that's it's me, but it's a part of the Steelers.
Q:Your personal Web site (www.Johnosart.com) mentions that you have five prints in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. How did that come about? Prascak: As far as those, I decided to send them [ a collection of Steeler-related prints] to the NFL, because I knew a small group of their own commissioned artists. I was thinking it would be an honor to get in that circle of artists. So I sent [the Hall] some prints. I thought they needed to see them full-size to appreciate them. So I got a letter to my studio maybe three weeks later, and it basically said,"Thank you for the prints. We love them. They're in our Pittsburgh Hall of Fame Collection" I was in my studio at the time. I jumped up so high, I almost hit my head.
Q: I see paintings here of Three Rivers, Terry Bradshaw, Art Rooney. but there's also one featuring [former Steelers] defensive lineman Joel Steed. Think you might be the only artist in the world with a painting of Joel Steed? Prascak: [laughing] That's possible. But why not? He was a hell of a nose tackle.But that was years ago, 1998, I think? I had all the Steelers in that painting-Kordell Stewart, Levon Kirkland, Carnell Lake.
Q: You also did a painting of Three Rivers. So what makes for better art, Heinz Field or the old stadium? Prascak: Well, I just did the Three Rivers one on my own. I like them both, but because Three Rivers was so dull, I had to dress it up a little but, if you look at the painting, it's very colorful.
Q: Cliche time. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. What's the worth in words of a Prascak painting? Prascak: Well, once [a painting] leaves my studio, it goes out into a world of it's own. I sign my name in it, and it could end up in a museum, a home. I think that's worth at least 1,000 words.