About My HomeCourt

Collaboration Overview

My HomeCourt is an annual initiative that fosters community engagement through the revitalization of basketball courts and city parks facilitated by cutting-edge contemporary art. Every year, a Providence park with an outdoor, public basketball court is selected for renovation. Providence College Galleries then commissions an internationally renowned artist to design a ground mural for that court. The annual project culminates with the opening of a refreshed basketball court and large-scale colorful artwork for the community.

My HomeCourt projects are curated by PCG staff and co-produced with Providence Parks and the My HomeCourt nonprofit, which is founded and supported by Providence College alumni and friends. Crucial support and help are provided by a rotating group of various community organizations, public and private funders, sponsors, partners, individual volunteers, and Providence College students, faculty, staff, and other alumni.

Learn more about My HomeCourt 2022: Lois Harada at Davis Park here.

For information about other individual My HomeCourt projects, please visit Collaborations → Upcoming, Current, or Past.

Murals on Campus and Beyond

PCG is committed to murals in more ways than one. In 2014, PCG began an annual exhibition series called On the Wall, which commissions large-scale artworks applied directly to the walls of Reilly Gallery. The series is presented as part of an interdisciplinary initiative at the College to explore rich cultural traditions surrounding murals and to develop new scholarship around the mural as a conceptual art form. Then in 2018, PCG staff helped launch My HomeCourt. The curation of public art ground murals for outdoor basketball courts perfectly fit into the overarching goals to cultivate and study the mural in a contemporary art context.

My HomeCourt Limited Editions

After artist Jim Drain designed the mural artwork for the inaugural My HomeCourt project, PCG and MHC jointly commissioned him again to commemorate the project. Drain created a limited-edition, fine-art lithograph titled “Triple Dribble.” The lithograph remixes and riffs on Drain’s court mural design, featuring spectral hues, tessellating forms, and iridescent overlays. As part of the limited edition project, the artist keeps several prints for their own archives, while PCG and MHC create a marketplace for the others to raise funds for future My HomeCourt projects.

To shop My HomeCourt Limited Edition Art, visit myhomecourt.org/shop.

About Our Collaborators

City of Providence Parks Department

Providence Parks empowers the people of Providence to engage with their public spaces and improve collective well-being. In addition to maintaining and programming dozens of local sites, Providence Parks works with city departments, organizations and residents to help activate and revitalize public spaces including parks, recreation centers, and streetscapes.

Providence Parks Leadership

Brett Smiley, Mayor of the City of Providence

Wendy Nilsson, Superintendent of Parks & Recreation for the City of Providence

Brian Byrnes, Deputy Superintendent of Parks & Recreation for the City of Providence

My HomeCourt non-profit

In 2018, a group of Providence College alumni set out to renovate an outdoor basketball court as a community service project. Working with Providence Parks, they selected the courts at Fargnoli Park in Providence’s Elmhurst neighborhood. They invited Providence College Galleries to conceive of and curate the courts as a large-scale artwork. That first year, the alumni, Providence Parks, and Providence College Galleries raised nearly $100,000 for My HomeCourt’s inaugural creative revitalization.

They then resurfaced the courts, repaired and replaced all necessary equipment, and commissioned Providence artist Jim Drain to create giant, abstractly patterned mural designs to be painted on the court surface. That October, the first My HomeCourt project opened to the public.

Following its success, this group of collaborators formed the My HomeCourt [MHC] nonprofit, an organization that works with Providence College Galleries to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and implement each My HomeCourt project with help from Providence Parks and various public and private partners. My HomeCourt projects now consist of renovating (or building anew) an outdoor basketball court and surrounding area so that internationally-recognized contemporary artists can transform the site into a colorful, living work of art.

MHC is born out of the idea that we all have our own homecourt; it is the place to play ball, be inspired, and find safety and refuge from the chaos beyond park fences. We believe that revitalizing basketball courts and parks empower the very people who utilize them. The renewed spaces become public artworks and inspire the community, neighborhood, and city alike.

To learn more go to www.myhomecourt.org.