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    New York Liberty Fans Get Creative With Jerseys, Art and Cross Stitches

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    As their favorite team in the W.N.B.A. experiences a surge in popularity, fans are expressing their love creatively.Eric Trude walked into Barclays Center on Sunday afternoon wearing one of the custom jerseys that he had designed to honor two of his great loves — hockey and the New York Liberty. Nobody was as surprised as he was.Trude, originally from Northern Virginia, grew up hating New York sports teams. Basketball was never his thing.Now, he’s collecting signatures from his favorite Liberty players on the back of his seafoam-green jersey that bears the name of one of the team’s star players, Sabrina Ionescu, on the nameplate. Call him a convert.As new fans of the W.N.BA. find their way to the game, they are expressing love for their favorite teams creatively — with homemade apparel, crochet, embroidery, painting and even crop art (or creating art out of seeds). No group is as thrilled as Liberty fans, who are hoping the team will win its first championship in the franchise’s nearly 30-year history against the Minnesota Lynx this week.The boom in creative pursuits and art based on the players is dovetailing with the W.N.B.A.’s surge in popularity.The hype wall in Eric Trude’s home.Eric Trude

    @samwojart Game Day 🏀 Let’s go @nyliberty 👏 . . . . #wnba @WNBA #newyorkliberty #ellie #newyork #art #basketball ♬ Welcome To New York – Taylor Swift We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Soccer

      Artists Play a ‘Drunk vs. Stoned’ Soccer Game

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      In Montauk, an end-of-summer art show and sporting event served as a kind of referendum on two altered states.A bunch of artists, along with some friends and family members, said goodbye to summer by playing soccer in Montauk, N.Y., on Sept. 17.It wasn’t the usual game. The participants split into two teams, Drunk and Stoned, and conducted themselves accordingly.The madcap sporting event went along with an exhibition, “Drunk vs. Stoned 3,” in which the works of 70 artists were displayed at a Montauk gallery and the Ranch, a 26-acre horse farm and venue owned by the art dealer Max Levai.The first “Drunk vs. Stoned” was held in 2004 at a gallery in Greenwich Village. The critic Jerry Saltz called it “one of the most diverting group shows of the year,” adding that it was “also one of the daffiest.” There was a sequel the next year, along with a soccer game at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. Legend has it that the Stoned team lost that contest because it didn’t notice that Drunk had added three players after halftime.Cannabis and hashish were available at a table near the field. A tall water pipe was an attraction for many participants.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesIt’s no secret that painters and poets have long sought inspiration in altered states, and the show notes for the third “Drunk vs. Stoned” event compared and contrasted works seemingly informed by alcohol and cannabis. Viewers were encouraged to ponder just how, as the organizers wrote, “the lowered inhibitions and impulsive decisions of drunk stand in stark contrast to the heightened sensitivity and methodical meandering of stoned.”Artists who took part in the exhibition included: Rachel Harrison and Laura Owens, who have been the subjects of full-scale surveys at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Katherine Bradford, who has works in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum; Jamian Juliano-Villani, whose paintings were featured in last year’s Venice Bienniale; and Nate Lowman, whose works have appeared at the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.On the morning of the game, which was scheduled to start at 2 p.m., Mr. Levai, 35, was not pleased to see a black Hyundai parked in the gravel area near one of the goals. The car spoiled the tableau he had hoped to establish on the property and detracted from the five grand sculptures by Matt Johnson, each strategically placed near the undulating expanse where the game would take place.“A lot of the sculptures here are pink and white, and the barns are white,” Mr. Levai said. “The black Hyundai is a big interruption in this aesthetics trajectory.”A “Drunk vs. Stoned” cozy commemorated the event.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesPlayers pick up their game shirts.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesThe car also didn’t fit in with the recreational zone that would include a massage table and two makeshift bars. Mr. Levai said he would have moved the vehicle himself, but it was locked, and he couldn’t track down the person who had parked it. He repaired to his hilltop residence, where he hit upon a solution: toilet paper.It seemed that Mr. Levai — who struck out on his own after he was ousted from the presidency of the Marlborough Gallery in 2020 — had ordered far too many rolls of industrial-grade Scott, which he was keeping in his pantry. Now he had a use for them.He enlisted two children, the sons of people involved in the exhibition, and together they covered the eyesore, using shaving cream as a binding agent. When the job was done, the Hyundai could almost pass for an art installation.Mr. Levai, the son of the former Marlborough Gallery director Pierre Levai, has not always had a smooth time on Long Island’s East End since becoming the owner of the Ranch in 2020, according to reports in local news outlets and art publications. In July, there was an altercation with a neighbor, the gallerist Adam Lindemann, who owns the adjacent estate, Eothen. Last month, a supervisor for East Hampton, which contains Montauk, said the town could seek an injunction against Mr. Levai over how he is using land that has been set aside as an agricultural preserve. (Mr. Levai had no comment on his dealings with the town or his plans for the Ranch.)The artist Scott Reeder, a curator of earlier “Drunk vs. Stoned” exhibitions in Manhattan, was at the event in Montauk.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesAs game time approached, the artist Scott Reeder, a curator of the first “Drunk vs. Stoned” shows, said that Mr. Levai had mentioned the idea of reviving the concept about a year ago. “I said, ‘If you were going to restage it, do it here,’” Mr. Reeder recalled.As the Stoned players began warming up on the field, several Drunk team members downed shots and beer. Both teams had uniforms made for the occasion, with “Stoned” or “Drunk” printed across the back. The referee, Jose Martos, an art dealer, suggested he was open to bribes, telling players, “One hundred dollars, if you want to win.”In the game’s opening minutes, Stoned was lively and focused. It had youth on its side: The two boys who had helped TP the Hyundai, ages 11 and 12, were in the lineup. (They did not partake of anything on offer at the makeshift bars.)Spectators cheered for Drunk as it scored one of its five goals.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesDrunk was sloppy, but it had a secret weapon in its goalkeeper, Paololuca Barbieri Marchi, a filmmaker and a founder of the art collective Alterazioni Video. Without his shot-blocking prowess, the game might have been a blowout.The 12-year-old player scored the first goal. The artist Borna Sammak, a member of the Drunk team, collapsed to the field, though he was not injured. He spent 10 minutes lounging in the grass, sipping a tequila drink.Esteban Chacon, a surf coach in Costa Rica and Montauk, had the second goal for Stoned. “This is vengeance,” said Mr. Reeder, who had played for the losing Stoned squad in 2005 and was on the same side again.A Drunk player took part in the action, drink in hand.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesThe Drunk team gave a cheer after its victory.Johnny Milano for The New York Times“Come on, Drunk, you got this!” said the Drunk coach, Ellie Rines, who runs 56 Henry, a gallery in New York’s Chinatown. Seconds later, Alex Hubbard, a mixed-media artist, kicked in the team’s first goal.In the first half’s final minutes — with Stoned leading, 4-3 — the players could hear the sounds of Big Karma, a Grateful Dead cover band that had set up about 100 yards from the field. As the musicians went into an extended jam, the Stoned team seemed to fall under a spell.Large sculptures by Matt Johnson were positioned close to the playing field at the Ranch in Montauk.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesAt halftime, a tow truck was rolling in reverse toward the Hyundai. Devin Troy Strother, a painter, confessed that he had left it in the gravel lot. The keys had ended up locked inside after a series of mix-ups, he said.Nearby, Stoned players were making use of a hookah-like bong. The Drunk team was huddling with Coach Rines, who was in pep talk mode. “We’ve got grit!” she said. “I think we can take this!”In the second half, many Stoned players were moving with a kind of contented aimlessness. They seemed to wither when Billy Grant, an artist playing for Drunk, engaged in some aggressive trash-talking. “I thought, ‘Just start screaming, to scare them,’” he said. Drunk won, 5-4.Massages were on offer for participants and spectators.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesThe next day, in a phone interview, Mr. Levai offered the opinion that the Grateful Dead cover band was a factor in the outcome. “Some people thought it would be an advantage for the Stoned team,” he said, “but my feeling was that it might have ended up being a distraction.” More

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      in Golf

      Ancient Earthworks Trodden by Golfers Become a World Heritage Site

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      The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has recognized the Octagon Earthworks in central Ohio as a cultural marvel.Nine months after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a country club must sell its lease to the state historical society that owns the land containing Native American earthworks, golfers are still pushing carts over the mounds and whacking at them with 3-irons.But now those Octagon Earthworks, which Native Americans constructed about 2,000 years ago as a means of tracking the movement of the sun and the moon through the heavens, have officially been named a UNESCO World Heritage site.“Inscription on the World Heritage List will call international attention to these treasures long known to Ohioans,” said Megan Wood, the executive director and chief executive of the Ohio History Connection, which worked with the National Park Service and the Interior Department to have a combination of eight earthworks sites in central Ohio recognized.Those sites, collectively known as the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, include the Octagon Earthworks in Newark, which were created one basketful of earth at a time with pointed sticks and clamshell hoes.The designation, announced on Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, puts the earthworks among just over 1,000 World Heritage sites. There are only 25 in the United States, among them the Grand Canyon, Independence Hall and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.“The historical, archaeological and astronomical significance of the Octagon Earthworks is arguably equivalent to Stonehenge or Machu Picchu,” Justice Michael P. Donnelly wrote in the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the state historical society, which upheld two rulings by lower courts.The recognition comes after a yearslong battle between the Moundbuilders Country Club, which had leased the land since 1910 and operated a private golf course atop the earthworks, and the Ohio History Connection, which owns the site and intends to open it as a public park.The History Connection sued the country club in 2018 in an attempt to acquire the lease, which runs through 2078. Federal officials had told the historical society that securing World Heritage recognition, which brings international acclaim and legal protection, would be impossible without full public access to the site.The club had argued that ending the lease was not necessary to establish public use and had contended that it had preserved and cared for the mounds. Its members, the president of the club’s board of trustees, David Kratoville, told The New York Times in 2021, “come out for a day and clean up sand traps and plant flowers.”After the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling last year, the country club filed a motion for reconsideration that was quickly denied.Kratoville wrote in an email on Tuesday that the country club had been good stewards of the Octagon Earthworks and welcomed their World Heritage recognition.“All we have ever asked for through this long-drawn-out situation was to be compensated fairly, thus allowing our business to continue somewhere else for our members, our community and the 100 or so people we employ,” Kratoville said.The club had said it was willing to move before the lease was up, but the parties are millions of dollars apart in their negotiations. The value of the lease will now be determined in a jury trial that is set to begin Oct. 17. More

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      in Tennis

      Artists Honor Wimbledon With Sculptures, Paintings and More

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      The Championships Artist Program has been chronicling the tournament in sculpture, paintings and other mediums for nearly 20 years.Sitting courtside at Wimbledon, the sculptor Mark Reed found inspiration as he watched players serve. The power, speed and beauty mesmerized him. Commissioned by the All England Club to create a sculpture that combined tennis and his trademark metal trees, Reed envisioned a piece that presented a serving player in human and tree form.This year, when fans enter the tournament grounds through Gate 1, they will be greeted by “The Serving Ace Meeting Tree.” The nearly 12-foot-tall bronze sculpture features a tree trunk and branches curved to represent a player in midserve. A canopy of stainless-steel leaves shades the bench below.Mark Reed’s bronze sculpture “The Serving Ace Meeting Tree” on the tournament grounds.AELTC/Chloe KnottThe sculpture is the newest addition to the Wimbledon landscape and to the collection of artwork produced by the Championships Artist Program.“Seeing it lowered into place at Wimbledon, that touchdown point, was very emotional,” Reed said. “It was like ‘Wow, it’s whole, it’s safe, it’s in position and looks right.’ ”In 2002, after refurbishing its clubhouse, the All England Club recognized a need for more artwork and commissioned pieces that depicted its rich history. Those commissions evolved into the artist program in 2006.For nearly two decades, a club committee has invited artists who work in a variety of mediums, including sculpture, painting, glass blowing, engraving, paper quilling, illustration and poetry, to create pieces that embody Wimbledon.Some of the artists are well-known with several prestigious commissions on their résumés, including work for the royal family. Others gain greater visibility through the program. All have been based in Britain, though it’s not a requirement, and all have collaborated with club leaders on themes and tie-ins to tournament traditions.“The Serving Ace Meeting Tree” includes caterpillars with tennis rackets on the branches.AELTC/Chloe Knott“The Serving Ace Meeting Tree” reflects a post-pandemic change to the program. Instead of annual commissions, the club now focuses on fewer, larger-scale pieces that may take years to complete. Reed said designing, casting and assembling the tree required almost 6,000 hours of work.Honored to be selected for Wimbledon commissions, the artists want to create pieces that provide an original take on the tradition-steeped event and connect with club members and visitors. That often results in a mix of emotions, typically excitement and anxiety.“People are so passionate about Wimbledon that everybody will have an opinion about what you’ve done; that’s quite a challenge,” said Eileen Hogan, who made oil paintings in 2009 that are showcased the Members’ Enclosure.Eileen Hogan produced several oil paintings in 2009 of the Wimbledon grounds.AELTCWorking at Wimbledon helped prepare Hogan for her most recent commission: the coronation service of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Hogan was the first woman to receive that assignment.Artists commissioned by the All England Club tour the grounds and the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum before the tournament starts and return to watch matches. Walking around with sketchbooks and cameras, they find inspiration almost everywhere — the clubhouse décor, championship trophies, flower beds, archived photos, action on the court, private clubhouse spaces, and conversations with members, caterers, ball boys and ball girls.“We try and show the artists our heritage and give them as much access as possible,” said Sarah Frandsen, who as program coordinator supports the projects from conception to installation. “We want them to be really fired up about the commission. We never want to be too prescriptive.”Jeremy Houghton, a painter, attended matches in 2017 and called the commission a “dream ticket.” He painted watercolors of Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Venus Williams and other top players. He also captured junior matches, wheelchair tennis and club staff.“You’ve got your rock stars on the court, but there’s a huge amount of people behind the scenes making things tick,” he said. “I was keen to portray both sides of that.”Jeremy Houghton’s watercolor painting of Wimbledon’s Centre Court.AELTCThe glassblower Katherine Huskie vividly remembers the tour she took with the engraver Nancy Sutcliffe in 2018. “What really struck us was all of the details on the wallpaper, the curtains, the carpet,” Huskie said. “It looks like little patterns, then you get closer and realize it’s tennis rackets.” That influenced how Huskie and Sutcliffe approached their commission.With a nod to the plate-shaped women’s trophy, they created two large glass discs. A ribbon of gold leaf winds around one disc, representing the seams on a tennis ball. The ribbon features engravings by Sutcliffe. From a distance, the engravings appear as an abstract pattern, but up close they’re an intricate arrangement of players in midstroke.Yulia Brodskaya, who specializes in paper quilling, built a three-dimensional aerial map of the Wimbledon grounds in 2015. The colorful piece consists of more than 1,000 paper strips that have been rolled, curled, folded and twisted into easily recognized images, including flowers on the grounds and Serena Williams with the women’s trophy.Yulia Brodskaya’s three-dimensional aerial map of the Wimbledon grounds is made from more than 1,000 paper strips.AELTCThe map includes a small tennis court at the center.AELTC“The whole experience was a visual representation of people being proud of 140 years of heritage and caring deeply about all aspects of the tournament,” Brodskaya said.As the program’s first and only poet, Matt Harvey enjoyed a different kind of Wimbledon experience. In 2010, he posted a poem online each day and read verses to fans waiting in lines.“Thwok!”A poem by Matt Harvey.“I thought I might be imposing poetry on people, but they really enjoyed it,” he said. “People wanted to be part of Wimbledon. I was helping them feel more part of it because they were having an interaction with the poet who was one of its odd little features. It was a celebratory thing, of the game, of the language.”After fulfilling their commissions, the artists get invited to the royal box, where they can celebrate their accomplishment and socialize with V.I.P.s. It’s a highlight of the program, but the most meaningful aspect remains creating art that becomes part of Wimbledon.When Huskie and Sutcliffe watch broadcasts of the championship matches, they’re reminded of that. Their glass disc with the gold ribbon is prominently displayed above the staircase leading to Centre Court. As the finalists walk down the stairs, Huskie and Sutcliffe can catch a glimpse of their work.“The whole project was mind blowing in terms of scale,” Sutcliffe said. “We tried to make something that was worthy of the space.” More

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      in Basket

      Why Denver Loves the Nuggets Star Nikola Jokic

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      Jokic, the Nuggets center, may be the best player in the N.B.A., but he avoids the spotlight. Still, in his own way, he has endeared himself to a city hungry for someone to believe in.About two miles from downtown Denver, the yellows, oranges and reds of a spray-painted mural fill the cracked, gray cement wall of a building that houses a temporary employment agency. The mural rises about 20 feet and depicts an expressionless Nikola Jokic next to a much more emotive Jamal Murray, his eyes narrowed and arms extended as though he is wielding a bow and arrow.Thomas Evans, a 38-year-old artist, finished the mural of the two Denver Nuggets stars recently as the team prepared to begin the N.B.A. finals. On Thursday afternoon, hours before Game 1 of the championship series against the Miami Heat, Damien Lucero was blaring his song “It’s Nuthin” while recording a rap music video in front of the mural. Lucero, 21, goes by Dame$, pronounced “Dames” (not to be confused with Dame D.O.L.L.A., the rap name of Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard). He said the mural inspired him and some collaborators to write the song as a tribute to Jokic.He rattled off some of his favorite lines:“Clean sweep, yeah, it’s all me.Had to smoke him out like I puff trees.Four mo’ dubs then we pop rings.Triple dub, ain’t no joke, he the new king.”The old king — at least to those who want to describe him that way — is LeBron James, whose Los Angeles Lakers were swept by the Nuggets in the Western Conference finals. James is the biggest star in the N.B.A., with four championship rings, piles of endorsement deals and a constant presence on social media and television. Jokic has none of that.“I see a lot of myself in him,” said Evans, who also goes by Detour.“I’m in the studio all day working on my artwork, and I’m not really front-facing as much as other artists may be,” he said. “I don’t always want to be in front of the cameras. I don’t always want to be in magazines. I want to actually just do my work and let that speak for itself.”Thomas Evans finished the mural of the Denver Nuggets stars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray during the team’s run to the N.B.A. finals.In the N.B.A., stars often take on their city’s identity — or imbue the city with their own. Magic Johnson’s love of luxury and glamour made him a perfect fit for Los Angeles; James’s embrace of celebrity has made him the same. Patrick Ewing’s physicality screamed New York City. Jokic, a 28-year-old Serbian who may be the best player in the N.B.A., is a bit of an enigma, similar to Tim Duncan when he was in San Antonio. And that suits Denver and Colorado just fine, according to those who live here.“The kind of talent that he is, you know, a modest talent, not somebody who is searching out the spotlight, a team player, somebody who’s down to earth,” said Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado. “I think Denver and Colorado, we view ourselves as down to earth.”On Thursday, Bennet wore a Nuggets warm-up jersey in Washington, D.C., on his way to vote to raise the debt ceiling.Stars like Jokic, who has won two Most Valuable Player Awards, can be close to a one-man stimulus for a city. The mayor of Denver, Michael B. Hancock, estimated that the Nuggets’ playoff run alone this year could bring in a $25 million economic boost.Even so, Jokic has almost no cultural footprint off the court as the Nuggets jockey for attention locally with the N.H.L.’s Avalanche and M.L.B.’s Rockies (all of which are overshadowed by the N.F.L.’s Broncos). But this obscurity is apparently by his own design. Talk of stardom appears to bore him. Asked whether he was the best player on the Nuggets, Jokic told reporters on Wednesday: “Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not. I’m cool with that.”Murray, whose nickname is Blue Arrow because of his basketball shooting skills, appears to be more comfortable in the spotlight than Jokic. He’s personable, expressive and active on social media. When Jokic is not Denver’s best player, Murray almost certainly is. He has promoted at least 10 brands over the past year, according to SponsorUnited, compared to just two for Jokic. It’s unusual for a top player like Jokic to be so elusive off the court.“I don’t know how much influence he really has because he doesn’t put himself out there,” said Vic Lombardi, a Denver sports talk radio host.Fans outside Ball Arena in Denver before Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals between the Nuggets and the Miami Heat. Denver won the game, 104-93.Jamie Schwaberow/Getty ImagesJokic rarely does interviews outside of mandatory news conferences, where he gives mostly anodyne answers. He has a deal with Nike but does not have a signature shoe. He doesn’t host a podcast, and his politics are a mystery. He has appeared in a handful of commercials in Serbia. Jokic said recently that basketball was “not the most important thing” in his life and probably never would be.“I would think he would be more connected just because it’s required when you’re a player of that caliber,” said Andre Miller, who played for the Nuggets in the early 2000s and again a decade ago. He added: “I think he approaches it as, I’m just a basketball player. Mild-mannered. He goes and plays ball and he goes home. So it makes his job a little easier and it keeps all the distractions out.”Jokic doesn’t do many interviews or commercials, which is unusual for a top star.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via Reuters ConNuggets forward Jeff Green said, “His job is to play basketball, not to meet everybody’s needs.”Vlatko Cancar, another teammate, chuckled when asked about Jokic as a public figure.“When you’re a star at that level it’s just so hard to please everybody,” he said. “I feel like he would like to sign autographs for everybody and shake their hands and take pictures with everybody. But it’s just too hard because it’s one of him and it’s millions of others.”Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado called Jokic “a rarity in the modern sports age.” He said people in Colorado “admire him all the more for not being an off-court distraction like other so-called stars are, you know, too often in both basketball and other sports.”Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, said that Jokic was like a “large bear that can do ballet.”“And that is a great look for Colorado, because we’re a former cow town — a mining town,” Hickenlooper said. “We come from honest, hardworking roots. Denver now is pretty athletic, and I’m not sure we’re quite up to ballet yet, but we’re getting there.”Jokic had 27 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists in Game 1 of the finals.Pool photo by Kyle TeradaWhite N.B.A. stars are often described in positive terms that are less frequently applied to Black players, such as gritty and unselfish. Still, discussions with those who know and follow Jokic suggest his reputation as a willing passer is deserved. Jokic has said he prefers to pass rather than score.His approach to stardom creates a challenge for the N.B.A., which is constantly looking to expand its reach. But the league doesn’t always help itself: The Nuggets, even with a two-time M.V.P., were not on national television during the regular season as much as some less-talented teams.In addition, a portion of Colorado residents have not been able to watch Nuggets games for the last four years because of a dispute over carriage fees between Altitude, the regional sports network, and Comcast. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday that it was a “terrible situation.”Hancock, the mayor, called it “really unfortunate.”“That robs these great young players of the notoriety they deserve and particularly in this season where they have done just phenomenal things,” he said.Stan Kroenke, who owns the Nuggets and the Avalanche, also owns Altitude. Polis, the governor, said he had “called upon both sides to work it out.”In Serbia, Jokic’s home country, the N.B.A. is popular. When he is home for the off-season, he lives as he does in Denver: away from the public, according to Christopher R. Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Serbia. But Jokic is someone “everyone is talking about right now,” he said.“The games tend to be at 2 o’clock in the morning,” said Hill, who lived in Denver for a decade before leaving for his post in 2020. “People stay up for those. It’s incredible. I’ll be talking to somebody in the Serbian government and they’ll start yawning — ‘Sorry, I was watching Jokic last night.’”The Serbian journalists Nenad Kostic and Edin Avdic have reported on Jokic since he was a teenager and now consider him a friend. They traveled to Denver to cover him in the finals, and had dinner with him the night before Game 1. They said celebrity makes him uncomfortable.“It’s not about money,” Avdic said. “It’s not about fame. It’s — I think — too much hassle for him. No, it’s too much of a burden for him.”Kostic said that Belgrade, Serbia’s big-city capital with nightlife, often becomes home for famous Serbian athletes, even if, like Jokic, they are from smaller towns.“Nikola is not like that,” Kostic said. “He likes to spend his days in Sombor, in the small city where he was born, where everybody knows him and they leave him alone.”Jokic was named the most valuable player of the Western Conference finals after the Nuggets swept the Lakers in four games.Ashley Landis/Associated PressTwenty years ago, the Nuggets drafted a player who was almost the polar opposite of Jokic: Carmelo Anthony. He was a more traditional franchise star, doing commercials, selling jerseys and putting out signature shoes. Starting when he was at Syracuse University, he made waves in popular culture, with his style and confidence. He spent more than seven seasons in Denver, coincidentally wearing No. 15, which Jokic wears now.Kiki Vandeweghe, the Nuggets executive who drafted Anthony, said both players’ approaches to stardom worked just fine for the franchise from a business perspective because of how well they performed on the court. He said Jokic “makes his team better.”“He comes with it every night,” said Vandeweghe, who played for the Nuggets in the 1980s. “He represents in many ways what the city’s all about and his team wins. And that’s a successful franchise.”Evans, the muralist, said he typically doesn’t paint celebrities, but found Jokic’s growing relevance worth the art. He finished his first mural of Jokic in February in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver. He added Murray in his second, the one finished just before the N.B.A. finals.Caroline Simonson, a 22-year-old Nuggets fan from Boulder, said she paid $810 to attend Thursday’s game and sit in the bleachers. She said Jokic’s public persona “limits his connection to maybe N.B.A. fans across the country, but not to the city of Denver.”“We’re prideful. We know what Colorado is,” she said. “If other people don’t know what it’s worth, we know what we’ve got here. It’s special to us. Sometimes we want to keep it to ourselves. We get to keep Jokic to ourselves.” More

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      in Basket

      Is That Steph Curry … or a Work of Art?

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      This Instagram account will change how you see basketball.In the flat red frame of a photograph, a woman smiles upward. With the camera, we gaze down upon the whirl of her body. Near her face, a basketball sinks through the net; below her feet, a white line divides the image, like the fold of a pocket mirror. On the other side of the line, the matte red of a basketball court gives way to textured brush strokes, punctuated by lines and grids in black and white. These abstracted shapes reflect, with a difference, the woman’s radiant skill. This image is titled “A’ja Wilson and Team USA Extend Win Streak to 51 | Kandinsky.” You can find it at my favorite place on the internet: the Instagram account @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s.@b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s posts partner a photograph of an N.B.A. or W.N.B.A. player with an accompanying detail, sometimes modified, from an artwork, usually an oil painting. If you (me) feel a nervous frisson around the name’s reference to a famous German design school, don’t worry: @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s never flattens the players into high culture’s dupes, and never flattens their sport into some noble but vague idea of “art.” Instead, @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s’s comparisons recognize professional basketball as a synthesis of labor and creativity, craft and art, practice and personality. I love its vision of the game.The breadth of these images makes clear that most sports media praises a narrow range of characteristics.Using comparisons to explain objects of interest — whether artistic, athletic or both — isn’t a new strategy. But @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s’s posts have a gorgeous uncanniness, rewiring the expectations I bring to the players they depict. Their physical and emotional insights surpass what a “SportsCenter” highlight reel can show. Look: LeBron James swaggering, warped and cerebral like a Lucian Freud self-​portrait; Giannis Antetokounmpo grieving, his loose joints weighted like Jennifer Packer’s seated figure in “Mario II”; Sophie Cunningham triumphant, hair flaring, fierce and radiant like Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” and Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.” The breadth of these images makes clear that most sports media praises a narrow range of characteristics. Think of the side-eye cast at Philadelphia’s James Harden, whose stubborn eccentricity is illegible to most analysts. @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s’s images show something different. They dive into the players’ sensibilities and seem to understand that being weird, effete or ambivalent might be part of these athletes’ power. In one @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s post, Harden stares cryptically out of the frame, eyes full of secrets, next to Paul Gauguin’s “The Sorcerer of Hiva Oa.”I realized the force of @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s during the N.B.A. playoffs, which culminated in a collision between the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry, the sweetest three-point shooter the sport has ever known, and the Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum, an emerging young star. How to understand these players as people and artists? Rather than asking where Tatum would fit in the pantheon of N.B.A. greats, @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s posted images like “Celtics up 3-0 | Edgar Degas.” Surrounded by Nets players, Tatum stretches into the air, his arm extending toward the basket in an elegant port de bras. His uniform finds its mirror in the tulle skirt of a ballerina, shimmering as she sweeps into an arabesque. Gracefully balanced, the dancer’s leg lifts away from the tilt of her head; Tatum’s muscled shoulder echoes the delicate arch of the ballerina’s toe shoes.Seeing this iconic image of (white) femininity used to complement Tatum’s strength felt like a revelation. The critic John Berger famously observed that in art and life, “men act and women appear.” But @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s’s figures, across gender and genre, define their meaning through what their movement can do. @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s went on to interpret Curry’s play via a series of juxtapositions to dancers: Sometimes he’s lithe and smooth, like Loïs Mailou Jones’s painting “La Baker”; sometimes monumental in strength, like Picasso’s women on the beach. In this context, envisioning Tatum with Degas’s ballerina seems neither a joke nor a too-easy equivalence. Instead, it highlights the precision of his technique. What might the rest of our sports media accomplish if it were equally willing to reconsider gender as a final mark of an athlete’s worth or ability? What stories might it tell about these athletes, or their world, if its attention was focused through @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s’s wider lens?Sports are played to win; that’s part of their pleasure. It may seem odd to chafe against sports media’s rankings, which arguably only track the competitive structure of the game itself. But basketball, like art, is worth more than a final score or a price tag. No simple calculus can determine what a given player might mean to the game or to fans. I love how @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s recognizes the players’ cosmopolitanism and humor alongside their ferocity and sweat, and how all this persists even in defeat. @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s’s way of seeing appeals to me because its comparisons resist both simple equivalence and forced hierarchy. It enriches images on both sides of the frame, making art and athlete seem wilder, more compelling. Criticism, whether of sport or art, doesn’t often manage to capture this thrill. At its best, @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s can feel like the greatest kind of basketball game, one with both teams playing at their most elegant and strong. One team wins, but it’s seeing everyone’s talents that makes the victory a work of art.Sarah Mesle is a professor, writer and editor based in Los Angeles. She is on the faculty at the University of Southern California and the editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books online magazine Avidly. More

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      The Art World Loves Basketballs. And Hoops and Jerseys and Backboards.

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      Fine art inspired by the sport is everywhere. One gallery filled nearly 5,000 square feet, and its curator said she “could do a Part 2 and Part 3 because there is that much work out there.”The basketballs are deflated, doused in spray paint or covered in 24-karat gold leaf. They’re sculpted from porcelain, plopped in cement or layered into enormous pyramids. They’re splashed onto canvases, carved into cheeky jack-o’-lanterns, flattened out like flower petals.Stroll through galleries, museums and studios, flick through auction catalogs and social media feeds, and it starts to become obvious: The art world is increasingly strewn with basketballs.“It’s like the best sport ever,” said Jonas Wood, who has become one of the world’s most sought-after painters while making basketball a recurring theme in his work.Titans of art who contemplated the sport in years past are having their work revisited in basketball-specific shows. Younger artists are engaging with the game as avid fans, wary skeptics or nostalgic adults. And the market is responding.Consider a cross section of recent exhibitions: Last summer, drawings by the influential artist David Hammons, made by bouncing dirt-covered basketballs on paper, appeared at Nahmad Contemporary on the Upper East Side in a show called “Basketball and Kool-Aid.” This spring, Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea presented basketball-themed paintings from Barkley L. Hendricks, who died in 2017, at an exhibition called “In the Paint.”The University of North Carolina at Greensboro women’s basketball team visited the Weatherspoon exhibit, including the pieces “Church” by Victor Solomon and “Meditation on Team (Waves for Scottie)” by Kendell Carter with Dawn Altier.Martin W. Kane for UNCG University Communications, 2020That was not to be confused with a hoops-oriented group show called “In the Paint” that opened this year at the Local Gallery in Toronto or another exhibition, also called “In the Paint,” a few years back at the William Benton Museum of Art in Connecticut. The Weatherspoon Art Museum, in Greensboro, N.C., had its own basketball-inspired group show, “To the Hoop,” in 2020.“We filled a nearly 5,000-square-foot gallery, and really I could do a Part 2 and Part 3 because there is that much work out there that is strong work,” said Emily Stamey, the curator of exhibitions at the Weatherspoon, which experienced record-breaking attendance numbers in the opening weeks of the show.The proliferation of basketball as both a subject and medium in art is the result of a convergence of multiple cultural currents and creative impulses, artists and others in the industry say.The generation of artists currently reaching the height of their powers came of age alongside the exploding popularity of the N.B.A. over the past few decades, following the rise of players like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. Even artists who are not outright fans of the game said they observed how deeply it penetrated society.“We have grown up with the advent of the sports industrial complex,” said Derek Fordjour, 48, who painted a portrait of Johnson for a solo exhibition this year at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles. “So artists, as cultural observers, would of course be influenced heavily by such a dominant force coming into view.”“Birth of Showtime,” by Derek Fordjour.David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles; Derek FordjourFordjour and others also pointed to a gradual, belated diversification of art spaces and institutions — with a strong focus in the market in recent years on Black artists — as well as a general rethinking about what can be considered fine art, which has invited more ideas and influences from pop and street culture and mainstream commercial realms.“The demographics of who’s being seen is definitely changing,” said Hank Williams Thomas, 46, who has drawn from the sport repeatedly in his work, which includes a 22-foot bronze sculpture of the Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid’s arm installed at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge.For artists, then, basketball can serve as both a powerful, eminently interpretable symbol and a banal object of modern American life.“It’s like painting a still life of a fruit bowl,” the New York-based sculptor Hugh Hayden said.But Hayden, whose solo show at Lisson Gallery in Chelsea last summer featured basketball hoops woven out of rattan and vine, conceded that basketball and fruit bowls could elicit different reactions.“There is a huge waiting list,” Hayden said about his basketball pieces. “I could make 100 basketball goals, and it would not satisfy the demand for them.”The sports-inspired pieces these artists saw in museums and books while growing up, to the extent they saw any at all, typically drew from baseball, they said.But today, baseball’s fading cultural relevance, and basketball’s simultaneous ascendance as a cultural force, is plainly observable in galleries across the country.“Cinderella” by Hugh Hayden.Lisson Gallery; Hugh Hayden“Rapunzel,” also by Hayden.Lisson Gallery; Hugh Hayden“Baseball was the poetry growing up, and I can still get teary eyed when I see a baseball game,” said Andrew Kuo, a painter from New York. “But my heart pounds when I see a basketball game.”Kuo had kept his fandom and art practice separate — “painting all day, then at night silk-screening Stephon Marbury shirts” — until the thrilling rise of Jeremy Lin with the Knicks in 2012 compelled him to address the game more directly in his work.He compared the recent proliferation of basketballs in galleries — a snowballing dynamic combining inspiration, evolution, market acceptance and plain copying — to the way the Eurostep gradually took over the N.B.A.“It’s our generation growing into the people who make things,” said Kuo, 44, who last year co-authored an irreverent, illustrated encyclopedia of the game, “The Joy of Basketball,” with the writer Ben Detrick. (Kuo and Detrick have also contributed to The New York Times.)Basketball, of course, has filtered into art for generations.“Lin (Glasses)” by Andrew Kuo.Andrew KuoAndy Warhol included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a series of athlete portraits he made in 1977.In 1986, Hammons, who is now 78, made a series of improvised outdoor hoops, some 30 feet tall, titled “Higher Goals,” which he described to The New York Times that year as “anti-basketball” sculptures. (The art world stirred in 2013 when a frosted glass basketball goal adorned with crystal-laced candelabras made by Hammons in 2000 sold at auction for $8,005,000.)And any basketball sitting in a gallery exists at least circuitously in conversation with Jeff Koons and the basketballs he began suspending in fish tanks in 1985.The editors of “Common Practice: Basketball & Contemporary Art,” a book published last year, tracked basketball-related art as far back as 1913 in a lithograph called “Basket Ball Girl.”“There was art with basketballs in it almost since the moment basketball was created,” said Dan Peterson, one of the editors. “But I think there’s a noticeable uptick in the last few years.”Stamey, the curator at the Weatherspoon, was thrilled by this surplus of work, from artists engaging the sport from almost infinite angles, as she assembled the museum’s show.The exhibition had work, for example, from the Canadian artist Esmaa Mohamoud, 29, who stitched N.B.A. jerseys into ballroom gowns as a means of interrogating the interplay of sports and gender roles in her childhood, and David Huffman, 59, who installed an enormous pyramid made out of 650 basketballs, connecting the grandeur and moral ambiguity of the modern game to that of the ancient Egyptian structures.A member of the U.N.C.-Greensboro men’s basketball team visiting the exhibit at the Weatherspoon. The pieces pictured include “Well Hung” by Suzanne McClelland and “One of the Boys (Yellow Back)” by Esmaa Mohamoud.Martin W. Kane for UNCG University Communications, 2020Elsewhere in the world, the London-based artist Alvaro Barrington has made basketballs sitting in cement-filled crates a recurring motif in his shows over the past year in London, New York and Los Angeles. At the Richard Prince exhibition currently on view at Gagosian Gallery in New York, a weathered basketball goal sits askew in the middle of a room. And later this month, the Cranbrook Art Museum in Detroit will open a solo show from Tyrrell Winston, who arranges basketballs and nets he finds into large-scale formations.The growing interplay between fine art and fashion has put basketballs on the runway, too: The artist Josh Smith collaborated with Givenchy for their Spring/Summer 2022 collection to make a basketball jack-o’-lantern handbag, and other clothing with the same imagery, reviving a jack-o’-lantern piece he made in 2015. “Basketball intersects with so many subjects, points of view, different things we’re talking about culturally and interested in,” Stamey said. “That’s what makes it such a rich topic and why so many artists gravitate toward it.”The N.B.A. is now backing this wave of work and engaging directly with the art world with increasing regularity.The newly designed N.B.A. finals trophy by the artist Victor Solomon.Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty ImagesThe artist Victor Solomon has become a go-to collaborator within the league, making objects like stained-glass backboards and porcelain basketballs in partnership with clients like Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Nike and the Boston Celtics. The N.B.A. recently commissioned Solomon, in collaboration with Tiffany & Company, to redesign the trophy that the eventual champions, either the Boston Celtics or the Golden State Warriors, will lift this month.Two years ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers took the unusual step of naming the New York-based artist Daniel Arsham as their creative director. A year before that, Arsham, 41, had installed a large fiberglass and plaster work, “Moving Basketball,” inside the Cavaliers’ home arena as part of a redesign by the team’s majority owner, Dan Gilbert, that arranged more than 100 pieces from almost two dozen other artists, including Nina Chanel Abney and KAWS, around the building.This month, Arsham will open a solo show, “Le Modular du Basketball,” in Marseilles, France, turning the top floor of a Le Corbusier building into a gym-inspired art space with works that blend the visual language of the famed architect with the universe of basketball.Daniel Arsham preparing for his “Le Modular du Basketball” installation at the MAMO Museum in Marseilles.Courtesy Daniel ArshamCourtesy Daniel ArshamWood, 45, is one of the art world’s most ardent fans of basketball, mining the game and his own nostalgia for inspiration. He idolized Bird growing up and frequently played pickup games with other artists when he first moved to Los Angeles two decades ago. His studio today features two hoops, an enormous basketball-shaped throne and countless other basketball knickknacks.“Basketball is rock ‘n’ roll,” said Wood, who has season tickets for the Clippers and often finds visual material for his portraits in trading cards. “It’s hip-hop. It’s box office.”Marty Eisenberg, a prominent New York-based collector, owns several of Wood’s paintings, including a portrait of Bird from 2004, which he likened to possessing a Babe Ruth card.But Eisenberg is haunted by the one that got away: a painting of Chris Kaman, the hirsute former Clippers center, from Wood’s first-ever solo show at Black Dragon Society in Los Angeles in 2006. Eisenberg missed the piece, and it was purchased by the California art dealer Jeff Poe. Wood’s pieces today are often valued at six figures.Bird’s Card by Jonas Wood.Jonas Wood; Courtesy Marty Eisenberg“Poe always hangs that over me, that he owns the Chris Kaman portrait,” Eisenberg said. “That’s one of Jonas Wood’s greatest pieces. And at the time it was, what, a thousand dollars.”In the time since, the game has infiltrated all corners of the art world.Last year, the renowned portrait artist Kehinde Wiley began selling basketballs featuring an image of his 2017 painting “The Death of St. Joseph” for $175, to benefit his nonprofit art organization in Senegal. (A plastic stand for the ball is sold separately, for $35.)Hebru Brantley, an artist whose work has been collected by Jay-Z and Beyoncé, created graffiti-style basketballs recently for Wilson, the sports brand, while Mr. Brainwash, the French street artist, made “vandalized basketballs” of his own last year.Even the Museum of Modern Art sells a basketball — designed by Marco Oggian, an Italian multidisciplinary artist — for $119.Amid all this, it can be easy to forget that the art world has not been completely overtaken by hoops enthusiasts, that there are scores of art lovers happily oblivious to the game.Jack Eisenberg, an adviser at Art Intelligence Global and an avid basketball fan (and Marty Eisenberg’s son), laughed as he recalled attending an opening in New York a few years ago and extricating himself from the party to watch a big college game.“I told them, ‘I have to go watch Syracuse versus Duke,’ ” he said. “And these people were like, ‘What does that mean? I don’t know what that means.’” More

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      Julian Gaines Has a Question: ‘How Do I Paint Oregon Black?’

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      In a cavernous studio on a wind farm in Forest Grove, Ore., about halfway between Portland and the Tillamook State Forest, Julian Gaines, an artist born and raised in Chicago, is creating a body of work devoted to Black American life.He starts his workday at 9 a.m. and goes until the work tells him he’s done, creating images of the civil rights movement’s heroes and martyrs, including James Baldwin and Malcolm X, in a state where Black people make up roughly 2 percent of the population, according to the United States Census Bureau.“I can’t complain about an environment that I’m in but not actually try to change it,” said Mr. Gaines, 31, who left Illinois in 2016. “I get out here and I see that Oregon is culturally inept. It is identical to a blank canvas. I think, ‘How do I leave my lasting mark here? How do I plant my Pan-African flag? How do I paint Oregon Black?’”On a recent afternoon, his studio was filled with the sounds of a fellow Chicagoan, Curtis Mayfield. An American flag occupied part of a 30-foot wall. Mr. Gaines lifted the flag to reveal two stark paintings that appeared to depict lynchings. They were part of a recent series, “Under the Flag.” On the other side of the room, there was a canvas, 14 feet wide, called “Better Timing.” It showed the face of Emmett Till, the Black boy from Chicago who was lynched at 14 while visiting Mississippi in one of the most brutal hate crimes of the last century.Artist at work: Julian Gaines in his Oregon studio.Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesMr. Gaines got widespread attention in 2020, when his series “KAREN(S)” was featured on the cover of New York magazine. It was Pop Art with a political edge — a bold image of a white woman holding a phone to her ear, her expression stern, a tear running down her cheek. It evoked a string of incidents involving women who had called the police on Black bystanders: a bird-watcher, a man entering his apartment building, an 8-year-old selling water.“KAREN(S)” owed something to an experience Mr. Gaines went through himself, after a neighbor damaged his car two years ago, he said. When he asked the neighbor, a white woman, to provide her insurance information, she threatened to call the police and report him for elder abuse, he said. As she approached him, ranting and pressing a finger to his chest, he recorded her with his phone. Once the police arrived, Mr. Gaines was able to show them the images on his screen. The neighbor ended up admitting to the police that she had caused the damage to the car, and the officers left soon afterward.“If I did not have that video, who knows what could have happened?” Mr. Gaines said.Nike released a limited-edition sneaker designed by Mr. Gaines in 2017.Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesAfter the incident, the woman sent Mr. Gaines a note of apology: “I am sorry for my actions and unneighborly behavior,” she wrote. The note hangs in his studio.Mr. Gaines has a key supporter in the art collector James Whitner, the chief executive of the Whitaker Group, the company behind the fashion labels A Ma Maniere, Social Status and APB. Works by Mr. Gaines, including “KAREN(S),” appear in Mr. Whitner’s North Carolina home, along with paintings and sculptures by KAWS, Nina Chanel Abney and Jammie Holmes.“He’s speaking to the Black experience, and he’s not blinded by institution,” Mr. Whitner said in an interview. “Some people don’t necessarily get Julian, but I get Julian because for years people didn’t get me.”Last summer Mr. Gaines had his first solo show, “Painting the Blueprint,” at the Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects gallery in Lower Manhattan. In September, “Benji,” his monochromatic rendering of Ben Wilson, a top basketball prospect who was killed in his Chicago neighborhood at 17 in 1984, sold for more than $20,000 at a Phillips charity auction. Mr. Gaines was born on the Southeast Side of Chicago and raised in a building owned by his great-grandmother, Gladys Pelt. His mother, Pamela Robinson, still lives there. An image of the building is tattooed on Mr. Gaines’s right wrist.He was born into a city and a world where Michael Jordan, whose Nike Air Jordans had become a streetwear staple, was everywhere. As a boy, Mr. Gaines loved Nikes, but he got only one pair a year — usually Nike Air Force 1s. He started expressing himself artistically at age 13, when he painted his Nikes to camouflage the wear and tear. In high school he kept at it, decorating classmates’ sneakers and T-shirts, sometimes for a fee.Mr. Gaines’s neckwear includes an easel pendant.Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesHe was also deeply involved in the Trinity United Church of Christ, where a young politician, Barack Obama, was a frequent presence. Mr. Obama’s rise to the presidency helped Mr. Gaines view history as something other than an abstraction.“My church family was really the first people to let me know that I could be a great artist,” he said. “I remember being in the room when Barack Obama was in the early stages of his campaign. Just being there and seeing those things really set a foundation for my work.”In 2010, he accepted a partial scholarship to play football at Northern Michigan University. He thought he had a shot at making it to National Football League, and he saw himself following the path of Ernie Barnes, a pro football player and artist who was often fined during his career for sketching when he should have been at practice. Mr. Barnes went on to make more than $100,000 a year from his art, after his retirement from the N.F.L. His painting “The Sugar Shack” appeared as the cover of the 1976 Marvin Gaye album “I Want You” and as the image shown during the credits sequence of the 1970s CBS sitcom “Good Times.”Injuries put an end to Mr. Gaines’s dream of going pro. So he focused on his art. “I got to see what it means to be a real student and not an athlete,” he said. “In college your time is monopolized if you’re an athlete. I’m really grateful for that injury.”The clothes are stained with paint after another day in the studio.Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesAn older classmate offered to buy one of his paintings for $300. His pastor and family members had purchased his artwork before, but this was the first time someone without a clear rooting interest in his success had become a patron.After graduation, he moved back to his great-grandmother’s place and used the garden apartment as a place to make art. “I wanted to paint myself out of there,” he said in his studio, before taking a drag on a joint.In 2016, before the legalization of marijuana in Illinois, he was arrested during a traffic stop after a police officer said he smelled of marijuana. During the brief time he was in custody, he decided to leave his home state. “I can’t be as creative as I want to be living in an area where my freedom was taken from me because of the way I smell,” he said.Nike, which has its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., loomed large in his thoughts. He moved to Portland in 2017 and made regular visits to the Beaverton complex, walking seven miles there and back and taking meetings in the cafeteria with whoever would see him. In his studio he keeps a sneaker box filled with 80 visitors’ badges from those days.“You’re supposed to return those badges,” he said. “Most people didn’t know who I was. I knew three people that worked at Nike, and they were not in any position to give me a job.”While trying to join the company in some way, he was building a reputation as a sneaker artist by selling his embellished versions of Nike Air Force 1s to his Instagram followers. Nike hired him as a freelance designer to create a collection especially for people in creative fields.“What I brought to Nike, and they were so gracious to believe in, were shoes for creating in,” Mr. Gaines said. “This is a shoe that embodies me, where I can feel comfortable and stand in the shoe all day.”Mr. Gaines’s recent work on display in his studio, including KAREN(S).Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesHe worked with two Nike models, the 1982 Nike Sky Force ¾ and 1985 Nike Air Vortex, and called the collection Game Worn. Nike released it, in a limited edition at a store in Chicago, in 2017. Since then, LeBron James and Russell Westbrook have been spotted wearing his creations. As part of the sneaker release, Mr. Gaines led a weeklong workshop, backed by Nike, that included art classes at Chicago’s South Shore Cultural Center.“I wanted to do something for the kids in my community,” Mr. Gaines said. “A lot of times children in Chicago live so far from where people are doing these events that they can’t pay $50 or risk their lives taking public transportation to get to the North Side.”Now he is focused on his art as he prepares for a solo show scheduled for August at the Russo Lee Gallery in Portland.“He’s doing it in his own way,” said Gardy St. Fleur, a curator who advises National Basketball Association players on their art collections. “It’s raw and it’s real.”Mr. Whitner, the art collector, thinks there may be something missing in Mr. Gaines’s work — and that once he figures it out, his paintings may become even more interesting.“I don’t think Julian has allowed himself to be vulnerable,” Mr. Whitner said. “I don’t even think Julian has reconciled his feelings about coming from Chicago. And I’m curious to see how that shows up in his work once he does start to really reconcile those feelings.” More