Pinoy charcoal artist’s painting has been signed by sports legend Michael Jordan signed it.
Christian Oliver Talampas has been a huge fan of sports legend Michael Jordan, touted as the “greatest basketball player of all time” by the National Basketball Association, and first saw His Airness on TV when he was eight and has looked up to Jordan since.
Christian wanted to “be like Mike” and admired the athlete’s laser-like focus, his never-quit attitude, his hard work and persistence and his goal was to one day get noticed by his idol, whose values he has learned to admire, in a report from ABS-CBN.
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Since he lost his work as a delivery driver during the first year of the pandemic, the father of four began painting in charcoal to augment the family income and people bought his artworks for a few hundred bucks each.
For getting the basketball legend’s attention, Christian thought of creating a charcoal painting of Jordan’s iconic “Last Shot,” an image shot by NBA photographer Fernando Medina in 1998. The picture of MJ doing that championship-winning clutch against Utah Jazz was ranked number one in Sports Illustrated’s 100 Greatest Sports Photos of All Time and in an Instagram video Christian posted in July 2021, he said it took him a total of 620 hours or 72 days to finish the MJ artwork.
He used charcoal, pencil, and colored pencil and in the video, the artist appealed to netizens to connect him with the retired hardcourt star so he could show Jordan what he painstakingly created. He ended his caption with a quote from the basketball titan himself: “I can accept failure but I can’t accept not trying.”
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Aside from posting videos on IG and TikTok, Christian even messaged specific people who could possibly help him send the artwork to MJ. But he didn’t get any replies, but one day, he got a message from American OG collector Bryan Apodaca. The guy was inquiring if Christian was selling a print of his “Last Shot” charcoal painting. Finding out that Christian wanted to give Jordan a copy of his artwork, Bryan offered to help.
Christian sent the artwork to Bryan in October 2021 and one morning, as he was about to sleep, a message came in from Bryan saying Jordan liked the artwork and “wants to do something a little bit beyond.”
