Jeremy John Kaplan is the artist behind the Gold Nets Project, which has replaced hundreds of broken or missing nets with shiny golden ones, and encouraged local basketball players to think about stepping up and maintaining the courts too. Plus: the northern Georgia city of Dahlonega says it had a gold rush decades before the ’49ers all raced to California.
An Artist Is Installing Hundreds of Golden Nets on Community Basketball Courts (Hyperallergic)
Dahlonega Gold Museum (Roadside America)
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The new basketball season is underway, and it runs from fall through winter and into spring.
But year-round, you’ll find would-be basketball stars playing pick-up games on neighborhood basketball courts – even though on many of these courts, there’s something missing that you would always see during a pro game: nets.
They break, or they’re broken, or taken, and maybe replacing them isn’t the top priority for those in charge of the park.
A great shooter hits nothing but net – but what if the hoop has no net?
Artist Jeremy John Kaplan has a solution. He’s behind the Gold Nets Project, which has replaced hundreds of broken or missing nets with shiny golden ones.
The way Kaplan replaces the nets is part of the project too.
He shows up in a white uniform and climbs a gold-painted ladder for each install.
He wants to be noticed, so that when players point out other issues with the court, like cracks in the pavement, or faded paint lines, he has a chance to encourage them to step up and do their part to keep up the court too.
The gold net is just a way to build that team and maybe bring them a little further down the court.
California calls itself the Golden State, but the northern Georgia city of Dahlonega says it had a gold rush two decades before the ‘49ers went out west.
There was so much gold, in fact, that the bricks in the local courthouse had gold in them.
That building is now, appropriately, the Dahlonega Gold Museum.
