LongHouse Reserve: Steven & William Ladd Bring ‘National Scrollathon’ to LongHouse Reserve, October 25th

Steven and William Ladd

Bring National Scrollathon to LongHouse Reserve

East Hampton Community Participates in Collective Artwork

October 25, 2025

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Bringing People From Across the United States to Tell Their Stories Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Founding of Our Nation

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Artists Steven and William Ladd bring their National Scrollathon to LongHouse Reserve on October 25th. Members of the East Hampton community are invited to participate in a series of artmaking workshops. Their individual creative contributions will be assembled as one permanent artwork. LongHouse’s finished piece will represent the East End when the Scrollathon is displayed in its entirety, with sections from all 50 states and U.S. territories, at The Kennedy Center in 2026. The National Scrollathon reveals the American story in all its beautiful complexity as we celebrate the country’s Semiquincentennial.

Using colorful strips of webbing, Scrollathon participants explore the meditative nature of hand working simultaneously promoting verbal communication with the creative team. This is the kind of traditional community communication that has always been fostered by American craft, be it quilting bees, story circles, or a barn raising. The humble upcycled materials combined with an environment of love and encouragement, gives people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds an atmosphere for reflection, healing, joy, and accomplishment. Participants become proudly part of something greater than themselves – symbolic of all the noble people that make up this nation. This exhibition literally weaves with the stories of everyday Americans.

Throughout their careers, Steven and William Ladd have developed an interactive, hands-on approach to artmaking. They meld fine art, design, and craft with their dedication to interactive collaboration, education, and community engagement. From small-scale intimate sculptural objects to the huge ongoing, inclusive, and embracing project they call Scrollathon. The brother’s artwork’s content is often drawn from their own shared memories and experiences. They have developed a way to encourage others to do the same, based on the idea of a scroll as an ancient form of communication.

On October 25th at LongHouse, there will be four workshops throughout the day. Each participant will make an additional scroll to take home as a keepsake.

LongHouse’s Scrollathon is generously underwritten by philanthropists Michele Cohen and Barbara Tober.

Steven and William Ladd return to LongHouse with Scrollathon, following the debut of their interactive sculpture Right Here. Right Now. in 2022. The installation was composed of beads hand cut from cedar trees (from their home in Germantown, NY) woven into textiles and mounted onto a structure creating a covered pathway.

The Ladd Brothers invented the concept and title of Scrollathon in 2006 to describe collaborative projects. Working with found and upcycled materials, it is intended to engage participants in the creative process, sharing and making, both as individuals and as a group. A Scrollathon, guided by the artists, provides participants with pressure-free opportunities to play, talk, and think—riffing on each individual’s improvisation to make art objects that are imbued with personal and universal meaning. During a Scrollathon each participant makes a scroll for themselves, and contributes one or more to a large, communal sculpture that captures the essential nature of the workshop.

What began in the artists’ hometown of St. Louis quickly grew to include special education students in Brooklyn, individuals in the custody of the NYC Department of Corrections, and diverse communities across the United States. A 2014 Scrollathon at the Parrish Art Museum, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, involved over 1,100 participants in a single community for the first time, sparking a movement that has reached thousands more and created monumental artworks celebrated by the communities where they are installed.

Ensuing Scrollathon have included a monumental permanent installation in Downtown Brooklyn in 2015 and a 35-foot painted bead installation for the Atlanta Mercedes-Benz Stadium, completed in 2016. Projects such as these challenged the artists to explore the possibilities of using small, intricately crafted objects to build massive installations, and expanding the interactive dialogue to increasingly large numbers of community participants. In 2019, the Ladds engaged with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students, veterans, and others affected by gun violence in Parkland, Florida, promoting community healing. Further, during a two-week festival celebrating The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts REACH expansion, 750 D.C. residents made scrolls for a 20-foot artwork permanently installed in the new River Pavilion, contributing to a legacy at one of the Nation’s best-known arts and culture destinations.

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NATIONAL SCROLLATHON

In 2017 the Ladds began discussions with Kennedy Center for a large-scale community Scrollathon, which led to a highly successful project completed in 2019. This proved to be the impetus for the National Scrollathon. With the encouragement of Deborah F. Rutter, President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts the artists have been working for the past four years to conceive of an ambitious program to fully celebrate the country’s Semiquincentennial. Said William Ladd, “This is a program about uniting America, working across the country, telling the American story and involving Americans from all walks of life, from all social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. It is about documenting where we are as Americans right now.”

In speaking about the Scrollathon concept, and her excitement with the National Scrollathon engagement, Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter said, “To actually have a part of your idea, your imagination, your soul, and roll it up and have it been a piece of the art, is sort of a miracle.”

Over the course of the next two years the artists will engage communities under the auspices of partnerships with museums, art centers, and service organizations in all 50 states, five territories, Washington, D.C. and Native Community Regional Centers, working in person in what is envisioned to be a spectacular, multidimensional manifestation of American national unity, bringing the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of our country together in the nation’s capital. Spanning the indoor and outdoor spaces throughout the Kennedy Center campus, the resulting collaboratively created artworks, along with photographic portraits of all participants, and an array of interactive, virtual initiatives, will provide expected audiences of more than 2 million people with access to background information, expanded individual stories, and additional methods to encourage on-going community participation. The goal is to bring people together, with the firm belief that art has the power to change lives.

https://www.scrollathon.com

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Nestled within the idyllic landscapes of East Hampton, Longhouse Reserve is a sanctuary in a 16-acre environment where the arts and nature converge, creating a haven for those seeking inspiration and serenity. Our unique venue offers curated gardens and outdoor art installations that invite individuals to embark on a journey of discovery, connecting with the beauty that surrounds us.

Current infrastructure work around the property leads us to the promise of opening the house for public tours, an offering that our founder desired and which we pledge to complete as soon as possible. LongHouse has been invited to join the National Register of Historic Places and is working with the Cultural Landscape Foundation to document the history of the property in its entirety, leading to landmark status and preservation in perpetuity.

LongHouse Reserve was created by artist, collector and world-renowned textile designer and weaver Jack Lenor Larsen (1927-2020) with a mission to inspire living with art in all forms. Over the past two years, LongHouse has transitioned from a founder-led to board and staff-led public institution, serving the community with vast open space, programs in art, nature, and wellness, providing a sanctuary for Long Island and beyond. The sculpture garden, featuring more than 60 outdoor works—including permanent collection works by Buckminster Fuller, Yoko Ono, Toshiko Takaezu, and Willem de Kooning, and seasonal loans from artists such as Maren Hassinger, Kenny Scharf, and Gaston Lachaise—encourages exploration and contemplation for new and repeat visitors alike. The garden is fully open to the public for education and enjoyment, with a next chapter of welcoming visitors into Larsen’s home (a modernist structure based on the Shinto Shrine at Ise), so that all can see his extensive craft and design collections.

The mission of LongHouse Reserve is to inspire living with art in all forms. The LongHouse vision is to serve as a living case study of the ever-changing interactions between nature, people, and art. The collections, gardens, art, and programs reflect world cultures and foster a creative life. Core values of creativity, resilience, and sustainability spell out LongHouse’s intentions in the years ahead. LongHouse puts its visitors first with a pledge to inspire creativity, offering a place for respite and community in a garden that will forever flourish without chemicals or harm to nature.

Learn more about LongHouse by downloading the Bloomberg Connects App and searching LongHouse Reserve.

LongHouse Reserve is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 12:30pm until 5pm. A Membership allows you to visit throughout the season and come early for Member Mornings on Saturday (10:30am – 12:30pm) for art making, walking, and special programs. General admission is $20, with half-price tickets for seniors, and no charge for veterans, active-duty personnel, members of the Shinnecock Nation, children under 12, and students with valid school/college ID. More information is available at www.longhouse.org.

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Visit AAQ / Art: LongHouse Reserve, East Hampton …. link

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