Basketball-Art Project Leaves Mark on Baltimore Community Center

Collaboration brings together neighborhood children, art professor, student-athletes to create paintings.

By Maryland Athletics Staff | Maryland Today

From the iconic photo of Michael Jordan taking flight from the free throw line for a dunk to the towering bronze statue outside Los Angeles’ Staples Center of Jerry West controlling the game, basketball has often been the subject of art. This weekend in Baltimore, the game itself became the tool to create art—and to inspire a community.

University of Maryland Assistant Professor of Art Brandon Donahue-Shipp and two members of the Terps men’s basketball team led nearly 30 children in a project at the Robert C. Marshall Community Center to create 14 painted artworks by dribbling the basketball in an unexpected, colorful and messy way. It’s the latest example of UMD’s Arts for All initiative, which combines the power of the arts, technology and social justice to address the grand challenges of our time.

“This was a way to extend Arts for All beyond the university campus,” said Donahue-Shipp. “We are using creativity and fundamental basketball skills to impact the youth of this community center and its families.”

Donahue-Shipp, a visual artist working in painting, assemblage and sculpture, lives in the neighborhood and asked its director, Antonio Jones, how he could support the center. “We talked about the basketball gym and how much attention it needs. It could use some color and something to inspire the kids and remind them what this center means to them.”

Read the full story in Maryland Today.