Painting for the Saints: My Journey with My Cause My Cleats

Christina Pappion
1 day ago
3 min read

Saints Quarterback wearing Christina's Handpainted Cleats raising awareness for United Way of Southeast

Some honors take a while to fully sink in. Being the first artist ever selected for the New Orleans Saints' My Cause My Cleats program is one of them.

What is My Cause My Cleats?

My Cause My Cleats is an NFL-wide initiative that gives players a chance to shine a light on causes close to their hearts. Each player chooses a nonprofit or organization that matters to them personally, and instead of standard game-day cleats, they take the field in a custom pair designed around that cause — worn during games, then often auctioned off afterward with proceeds going straight back to those same organizations.

How I Got Involved

I was the first artist ever chosen for this program with the Saints — a genuine first for the team — and I've been hand-painting custom cleats for Saints players every year since 2016. Over the years, that's meant translating each player's personal story and chosen cause onto the canvas of a shoe — everything from tributes to autism awareness to causes around veterans, education, and community organizations across Louisiana and beyond — every design different because every player's "why" is different.

Getting to sit down with a player and hear directly why a particular cause matters to them, then figure out how to capture that visually on something as small and detailed as a cleat, is unlike any other kind of commission I do — you can see a bit of that process here. There's no room for a wasted brushstroke. Every color, every symbol, every detail has to earn its place and tell the player's story clearly enough that people watching from the stands — or scrolling social media afterward — understand the why behind it, even without an explanation.

More Than Just a Painting

What makes this project special is what happens after the final whistle. Many of these cleats are auctioned on the NFL's official auction platform, with proceeds going directly to the nonprofits the players chose to represent — meaning the artwork doesn't just sit on a shelf, it actually raises real money for real causes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I attribute so much of my career's growth to the New Orleans Saints and to being trusted with this program. It's given my work a platform I never could have built on my own, and more than that, it's connected me to a team and a city I already loved with my whole heart.

Full Circle

Every cleat I paint carries a piece of somebody's story — a player's personal cause, translated into something they get to wear on the biggest stage there is. Getting to be the artist trusted with that, again and again, season after season, is one of the honors of my career I don't think I'll ever fully get used to. And I hope I never do.

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