MEET NEW CRAFT ARTISTS IN ACTION

WHAT IS New Craft Artists in Action?

New Craft Artists in Action, founded in 2010 by Team Captain Maria Molteni with artists Andrea Evans and Taylor McVay, is an international, 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, sportsmxnship 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 the traditional cultural and socio-economic contexts in which these activities evolved. 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 make 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 PLAYAS?

Maria Molteni is the founder and Team Captain of the NCAA and serves as the “full time” organizer, administrator, primary writer and creative director of the more recent court makeovers. There are many more incredible artists active within the NCAA that have made ambitious projects possible over the years. It’s nearly impossible to list everyone who’s contributed to NCAA collaborations, but care is taken to credit all artists who created an individual piece or worked on a project in its feature on this website. There are not formal or limited “members" of the New Craft Artists in Action, but you’ll see many photos and notes on 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, 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) and Golden Arrows (US).