Maria Molteni & New Craft Artists in Action
Artist & activist
New Craft Artists in Action (NCAA) was founded in 2010 by artists and activists Maria Molteni, Andrea Evans, and Taylor McVay as a queer and feminist art collective with roots in Boston, MA.
Through exhibitions, workshops, community projects, and publications, NCAA works at the intersection of athletics and craft. The collective engages public spaces with a combination of athletics’ discipline and physicality and contemporary art’s innovative and conceptual rigor. Their work encourages participation over spectatorship, challenging traditional social contexts and commercial motivations often associated with athletics. Building upon DIY skill-sharing models, the collective creates dynamic learning environments and artworks that employ a range of skills from knitting, crochet, painting, and performance to design thinking and ball handling.
Members of New Craft Artists in Action from left to right: Maria Molteni, Shterna Goldbloom, Marcella Gallegos, Eli Brown, Coe Laposse, and Kah Yangni.
“Courting the Sky,” Clasky Common, New Bedford, MA, 2019.
Image by John Maciel
Nashville-born Maria Molteni is NCAA’s Team Captain and serves as the lead artist and creative director of NCAA’s most ambitious projects, including their large-scale, community-centered, public basketball court murals.
Since 2015, Maria has worked with communities throughout Massachusetts to reimagine basketball courts as horizontal monuments and neighborhood altars that invite play while acknowledging the surrounding land and communities.
Maria works with professional artists to hand-paint massive murals that double as playable basketball courts. The colorful and enchanting final product often overshadows the athleticism and physicality of hand painting the courts with brushes. However, understanding the process and symbolism behind the courts only allows for a deeper appreciation of their beauty.
“My painting education put extreme emphasis on the male artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement,” Maria explains, “as a queer feminist, I have sought to recontextualize the notion of action painting, by which famed-painter Jackson Pollock was said to have made the canvas an arena in which to act. I aim to transform the arena into a painting, the court into a surreal multi-use labyrinth for all kinds of bodies, the monument into a horizontal commons, the ground into an altar to the sky.”
Maria painting “A Sea Bird, Sea Green Playground,” Seaport/ Downtown Boston, MA 2021. Image by Lindsay Ahern.
Courting the Sky
Clasky Common, New Bedford, MA, 2019 (on Massachusett land, we play) Image by John Maciel
A Sea Bird
Sea Green Playground, Seaport/ Downtown Boston, MA 2021 (on Massachusett land, we play) Image by Alex Pickering
Tormenta en la Cancha/Storm on the Court
El Punto/ The Point, Salem, MA 2018 (on Massachusett land, we play)
Cosmic Court/Lunar Fire
Talbot Middle School, Fall River, MA 2019 (on Massachusett land, we play) Image by John Maciel
A young community member adds their ideas for “Hard in the Paint,” Harambee Park, Dorchester, MA, 2017
Maria hires almost exclusively femme, queer, trans, and non-binary artists who historically have been marginalized in both athletic and creative fields. Further, what sets Maria and NCAA’s courts apart from other basketball court projects, which are gaining popularity across the globe, is their implementation of an organic and radically open, community-invested creative process.
Maria engages community members and court regulars with prompts and questions inspired by the values and creative visions of the young people who actively use the space. The themes that emerge from Maria’s collaborative approach with each community are conceptually rich, relevant, and vibrant, resulting in a visually striking public artwork that acts as a beacon for play and fellowship.
The STAR BALL is Molteni’s second limited edition art basketball, featuring designs from Fall River’s “Cosmic Court” at Talbot Middle School. Your STAR BALL comes with a regulation-size, playable, collectible basketball, signed Cosmic Court sticker, and Senda/Sedna Zine which includes information about the conceptual context of the ball, with essays written by Abigail Smithson and Maria Molteni about Senda Berenson (founder of women’s Bball) and Sedna 90377 (Molteni’s favorite Trans-Neptunian Object).
This ball has beautifully printed graphics, a nice grip-y texture (like an indoor ball), embossed custom imagery (in place of typical branding) including an iridescent foil comet, Libra and Aries star constellations, artist’s signature, and STAR BALL title.
If you purchase a star ball by November 3rd, you will get the Birthday Bird special price. Follow the links for instructions to buy your ball for pickup, to ship, or to receive additional Patreon discounts!