Artists and donations sought for new mural on Crisfield basketball, tennis courts
CRISFIELD, Md. – Artists will have the chance to win one-thousand dollars and have their own mural design painted on two basketball courts and one tennis court in Crisfield.
The Crisfield Housing Authority, Somerset County Parks & Recreation, City of Crisfield, and Crisfield Arts & Entertainment District (CAED) Project are partnering to rehabilitate the basketball and tennis courts at the Crisfield Housing Authority. Project organizers say the courts are in extremely poor condition but after they fix them up officials are looking to paint a bright colored mural on them as well. They’ll be partnering with Shelton Hawkins of Play in Color who is responsible for a similar project in Easton.
Andre Collins, a Crisfield native and past international pro-basketball player, is also joining the initiative and says he’s looking forward to seeing the courts he grew up playing on brought back to life, “Kids really don’t have an outlet so what they are doing is they have too much idle time and they’re gravitating toward the wrong things. So I think coming in and seeing a mural project with inspiration, allowing these kids to see anything is possible.”
Officials say the entire project will cost about $145,000 with a majority of that going towards resurfacing the courts and adding nets.
The selected design will be used in an application for a Maryland State Arts Council Public Art Implementation grant in November with a goal of resurfacing the courts early summer of 2021 through multiple grants and partnerships with the Crisfield Housing Authority, City of Crisfield and Somerset County Parks and Recreation, and then having volunteers led by Shelton Hawkins and Megan MacLennan Cook paint the selected mural.
Donations to this project can be made at Crisfieldarts.org/basketball-court-mural. Make sure to select the correct option in the drop-down menu bar.
The competition closes October 28, 2020. All submissions must be made via email to Play in Color member Megan MacLennan Cook at meganjmcook@msn.com using the forms found at CrisfieldArts.org/basketball-court-mural.
