Baseball is a game of numbers: batting average , RBIs. ERA.

But Connor Wright had to come up with a different kind of number for a project honoring St. Louis Cardinals legend Stan Musial: how many Rubik’s Cubes it would  take to create a 205-square-foot mural with a trio of images of the famous #6.

Through a series of calculations, the senior at St. Louis Priory School nailed down a figure: 5,980. The next problem? Where to get that many Rubik’s Cubes and how to pay for them. Oh, and figure out how to turn each of the nine squares on each cube’s surface to create the lines in Musial's face, the wrinkles in his shirt, the stitches in his glove.

In our newest Cut & Paste podcast, Connor explains how he made the massive mural for Ballpark Village before turning to another project using 305,000 crayons.

Here’s some of what you’ll find in the podcast:

• Why Wright loves pointillism, the genre he employed in the Musial mural: “I was looking for some way to combine my love for math, which is exactitude, that would allow me to still have the freedom that art provides.”
• On finding the space to create the 17-by-12-foot mural: “We cleared out about half of our first floor for this project. My mom was willing to move out the dining room table and a couple of couches.”
• About an unanticipated challenge: “Every cube came solved and I had to unsolve all 5,980.”

Look for new Cut & Paste (#cutpastestl) podcasts every few weeks on our website. You can also view all previous podcasts focusing on a diverse collection of visual and performing artists, and subscribe to Cut & Paste through this link.

Follow Willis and Nancy on Twitter: @WillisRArnold and @NancyFowlerSTL

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