You and Me, Me and You, All of Us Together, 2022, fiber, rubber bands, pins, glue, wood, paint, approximately 96 x 96 x 3 1/2 inches
National Scrollathon
Dixon Gallery & Gardens
Memphis, Tennessee, 2025
Collaboration with 126 participants
Steven and William Ladd launched the National Scrollathon in Hawai’i at the Downtown Art Center! This engagement endures as Hawaii’s contribution to America’s Cultural Project and the goal of Uniting America. This massive nationwide collaboration culminates at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2026 for America’s 250th Birthday, the Semiquincentennial!
On November 12, 2024, 126 people from Hawaii participated in sessions where they created individual artworks that express their story, contributed to a Collaborative Masterwork—a legacy artwork for Hawai’i for the Semiquincentennial, and had their photographic portraits created. The Program concluded with a unveiling event of the Collaborative Masterwork, “A Hui Ho”, which was installed at the Center, accompanied by a Portrait Mural and Signature Plate of all participants.
The catalyst for Scrollathon was artist-brothers Steven and William Ladd’s belief in the creative capacity of every human being and in the magnified power of community. Partnering with hundreds of stakeholders and institutions, Scrollathon has reached more than ten-thousand people since 2006. The National Scrollathon is a nationwide initiative offering meaningful engagement to people of diverse ages, backgrounds, and abilities through the creation and presentation of monumental Collaborative Masterworks of art from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and 5 U.S. territories—uniting America for its 250th Birthday in 2026.
Portrait Mural of 500+ participants, National Scrollathon, Sarasota, FL
Community Groups
All Star Children’s Foundation
ALSO Youth
Alzheimer’s Association, Florida Gulf Coast Chapter
CreArte Latino Cultural Center
Easterseals Southwest Florida
Girls Inc. Sarasota
Gulf Coast Latin Chamber of Commerce
IMPACT Theatre
Indigenous in Music and Arts Inc.
JFCS of the Suncoast
Kutya Major SAM Teen Arts Council + Family
Manasota B.U.D.S. (Bringing Up Down Syndrome)
Memory Disorder Clinic at Sarasota
Memorial Hospital
Neuro Challenge Foundation for Parkinson’s
New College of Florida
Planned Parenthood of Southwest and
Central Florida
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Art Museum
Sarasota County Health and Human Services
Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office,
Second Heart Homes, Inc.
Senior Friendship Center Sarasota
Southside School Foundation for the Arts
Streets of Paradise Sarasota
You and Me, Me and You, All of Us Together, detail
Signature Plate of 500+ participants, National Scrollathon, Sarasota FL, Archival paper, ink, 17 x 22 inches
Walter’s Story
“You look at this scroll, it’s black and white. It’s not separate, it’s together.
I grew up here in Sarasota, Florida, in a segregated school system up until the point I was in tenth grade. At that point they closed down the local black school, and they integrated the two high schools here in Sarasota. And one of them was in this building….
I’m emotional because I know what we went through, and it wasn’t easy. That emotion came out so raw and so unexpected. I don’t even know where it was coming from. As I think back, I know why it came out, because it needed to come out.”
American Storyteller videos of participants from the National Scrollathon, Sarasota, FL