MINNEAPOLIS -- The art gallery the Minnesota Vikings are planning for U.S. Bank Stadium has a growing creative presence from some of the greatest players in team history.

The Vikings announced Tuesday that linebacker Matt Blair and defensive end Jim Marshall, both members of the team's Ring of Honor, will join Hall of Fame defensive end Carl Eller in contributing original artwork for the gallery inside the team's $1.1 billion new home.

The privately funded collection is now slated to include more than 500 works from 44 artists, including 36 from Minnesota. Eller was one of the original 34 commissioned for the gallery last fall. The Vikings have expanded the collection to include photography from Blair, who embraced the medium during his early years with the team, and a recreated version of the Silver Eagle drawing that Marshall used to adorn his playing gear during his 19 seasons with the team.

This photo will be in the art gallery at the Vikings' new U.S. Bank Stadium. It was taken by Matt Blair and features Jim Marshall giving a birthday cake to Bud Grant, who lied about his age. The cake reads: Happy 41st, you lying SOB! Courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings

"It’s so appropriate to have something by the players, certainly the guys that played back at the Old Met," Eller said, referencing Metropolitan Stadium, where the Vikings played from 1961-81. "To be involved in a different way, it’s just fantastic. I’m just giggling over the idea that my artwork will be in there. To think you're from a whole different era, a whole different time, and still can contribute, it’s fantastic."

Eller, who took up ceramics in the past five or six years and has seen his work featured at the Edina Art Fair (in Edina, Minnesota) and Bayfront Park Art Fair (in Duluth), is designing a collection of 10 to 12 ceramic bowls depicting Minnesota's 11,842 lakes. The bowls will hang vertically in cases, with some glazed in hues of blue to represent water, and Eller estimates his exhibit will reside in a 4-by-8-foot space.

He spends between 15 and 20 hours a week at his art studio in north Minneapolis, working on the piece for the stadium gallery and several other projects. "I want to see where it’s going to go," Eller said. "They’re going to be water color or lake color; I'm going to use a lot of blues and hues like that. It will have a fluid feel to it. I have to survey the spot. Right now, I'm kind of getting to a point where I really want to visualize my art.

"I have fired some of the clay; I had to do that to test out the apparatus [he designed for hanging the bowls]. I’ve started with it. The project is partially done; I've got some glazed, I want to raku [fire] a couple pieces. It's really coming down to the fine elements of it now."

When U.S. Bank Stadium opens next season, the names Eller, Marshall and Blair will be displayed in the Vikings Ring of Honor for their excellence on the field. Their lives after football, however, will have given the three Vikings greats another unique place in the new stadium's environment.

"I want people to realize, it really is a personal piece," Eller said."It's my hands and all of that stuff. What goes into it is a piece of me. I know each piece, I develop a relationship with each piece. That’s what they’re getting."