MEET NEW CRAFT ARTISTS IN ACTION

WHAT IS New Craft Artists in Action?

New Craft Artists in Action, was founded by Maria Molteni and launched with Andrea Evans and Taylor McVay in 2010. NCAA is an international, queer + feminist art collective with shifting/cycling players and home-court roots in Boston, MA. Through exhibitions, workshops, community projects and publication they work to integrate the skills, materials, and her/his/theirstories of many intersecting disciplines: athletics, craft, public space, queerness, aesthetics, labor, recreation and feminism to name a few. NCAA projects combine the discipline, sportsmnship and physicality of athletics, the focus, dexterity and creativity of craft and the innovative, conceptual rigor of contemporary art. This unlikely marriage is meant to encourage participation over spectatorship, challenging more traditional social contexts and commercial motivations often associated with athletics. Building upon DIY skill-sharing models, the collective creates dynamic learning environments and bodies of work that may call upon knitting, crochet, painting, performance, bookbinding, screen printing, building, video, ball handling, etc. The NCAA believes these programs should be both critical and fun, inciting the tactile and tactical liberation of recreation.

NCAA is most known for their first project Net Works, a non-commercial, open sourced process that encourages folks to create hand made basketball nets for their own empty hoops + the large scale, community-centered public basketball Cosmic Court makeovers that they pioneered within the filed of athletic art. You can read more about those projects and the wide array of contexts/spaces where they create social magic throughout this site.

WHO ARE THE NCAA PLAYERS?

Maria Molteni is the ongoing Team Captain of the NCAA and serves as the “full time” organizer, administrator, writer and creative director of the more recent court makeovers. There are many more incredible artists active within the NCAA that have contributed to ambitious projects over the years. It’s nearly impossible to list everyone who’s collaborated with/under the NCAA umbrella, but care is taken to credit all artists in the appropriate website feature. There are not fixed members of the New Craft Artists in Action, but you’ll see mentions of the original Boston crew, namely those who worked on the Net Works publication and created many of the first handmade nets. Some founding NCAA players include: Andrea Sherrill Evans, Taylor McVay, Samantha Fields, Cara Kuball, Nerissa Cooney, Lizzie Curran and Mallory Biggins. NCAA wouldn’t have hit the ground running without these Allstars, many of whom are still involved. Collectives who have worked closely with NCAA include Clara Balaguer/The Office of Culture and Design (Manila), Hardworking Goodlooking (NY + Philippines + Rotterdam), Queer Sport Split (Croatia), Kosmologym (US + Denmark), JR Uretsky/New Bedford Art Museum (Massachusetts), Sports Bra (Oregon), Antidesigns (Boston), Contesting/Contexting Sport (Germany), Abigail Smithson (artist + host of Dear Adam Silver Podcast), and Golden Arrows (US).