Bal Harbor Village has brought Jon-Paul Wheatleyit is monumental Badly drawn ball sculpture on Bal Harbor Village Beach, where the large work now stands on 96th Street next to the Atlantic Ocean. The installation marks his next chapter 12 The Pentagon project after debuting in June at the Bal Harbor Shops and expanding the project into a public environment open to residents and visitors.
Wheatley founded 12 Pentagons as a football design studio focused on unique balls and unconventional constructions. His work links sports equipment, collectible design and sculpture, and his works have led to collaborations with FIFA, adidas, Pepsi, Burberry and Apple.
Badly drawn ball started with a simple problem: drawing a football from memory often results in warped panels, uneven lines and distorted proportions. Wheatley spent four years developing a physical ball that could sustain these errors in three dimensions. In October 2024, 12 Pentagons asked their audience to retrieve a football from memory in three minutes. More than 5,000 submissions followed, giving the studio a large archive of irregular shapes and common mistakes.
The final design uses 50 uneven panels and changes appearance from every angle. The paper grain finish helps the surface look like a sketch transferred directly from the page, while recycled polyurethane gives the ball its performance material. The construction uses a seamless, heat-bonded finish and maintains a perfectly round size 5 form despite its intentionally awkward visual structure.
Wheatley translated the same idea into the large sculpture now installed in Bal Harbour. At this scale, the twisted geometry becomes an architectural object, turning the familiar football shape into a public artwork built around imperfection, memory and participation.
Bal Harbor Village unveiled the facility during its 80th anniversary. The project forms part of the destination’s cultural programming and brings contemporary art into an environment associated with travel, hospitality and the coast. The sculpture remains on display until July 27. The Bal Harbor installation gives Badly Drawn Ball its largest public form to date, bringing a design shaped by thousands of unfinished sketches to a shared outdoor space.
