Dedicated to my mom and the underdogs, this piece is a collage of my memories when it pertains to basketball and growing up in Indiana. Despite not having played seriously on a team, I still found a love of the sport and the culture that surrounds it.  The references to these parts of me are shown vaguely interconnected in this piece, like a map connecting the different parts of me from childhood until now. Shaping me like clay, my past depicts who I am in my adult life as an artist living in Indianapolis.  To express this I pressed basketball textures into the clay, glazed colors/patterns inspired by Dennis Rodman's hair, and carved beloved characters from basketball related movies and anime (like Space Jam and Kuroko no Basuke) as well as my mom's high school basketball jersey number.  My mom, being a big influence on who I am and the reason for my fondness of the sport, was the loudest and proudest basketball fan I knew. She was my biggest supporter and loved rooting for the underdog. Any time we watched a close game and it looked like our team was losing hope, she always said, “I'd rather be down by two than up by two.”  She would continue to explain that this meant as long as there is still time left in the game, there is still hope to win. This always stuck with me and I eventually came to understand that a sport can be about more than just winning and losing. I made this piece to encourage self expression, working in community with others, and to be a reminder that when one is down, to keep playing the game.