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Pace Academy's Isaiah Kelly working to perfect his craft

On and off the court, the senior basketball player is perfecting his masterpiece of life.

Most days, Isaiah Kelly is working to perfect his craft.

Whether it’s painting, or ceramics (he told 11Alive he thinks he's "pretty good.")

Pretty good, but a work in progress.

“I have a couple pieces that I think are really, really good, but nothing is absolutely perfect,” he confessed.

Isaiah first got on the wheel two years ago.

“I was really bad at it the first couple of months. Eventually, I got a little bit better at it."

And then, he started painting just six months ago because, well, he had to.

“It was one of our requited projects for my senior art class,” he explained.

Recently, Isaiah has turned projects into profit, because “people like the stuff I make.”

But long before Isiah Kelly was an artist, he was perfecting his craft in the gym.

“Basketball means that much more to me because I have put so much more time into it,” he said.

That hard work has paid off. Kelly is one of the top players in the state, a two-time state champion and has over 1,000 points at Pace Academy. He received multiple basketball scholarship offers before committing to Yale – a school that doesn’t offer athletic scholarships.

“I was looking at life after basketball. It’s not the 4-year mindset, it’s the 40-year mindset,” he told 11Alive's Alex Glaze. “Basketball can’t last forever.”

But basketball and art are only a small part of Kelly’s masterpiece. A masterpiece that won’t be complete any time soon.

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