Phoenix Art Museum hosts Arizona edition of Scrollathon to create large-scale community artwork in honor of the nation’s semiquincentennial 

Aug, 29, 2025

Media AlertsSpecial Events and Programs

Phoenix Art Museum hosts Arizona edition of Scrollathon to create large-scale community artwork in honor of the nation’s semiquincentennial 

In September, Museum will collaborate with artists Steven and William Ladd and Valley organizations, community groups, and schools to create the state’s official artwork for the semiquincentennial event at the Kennedy Center  

Art Museum (PhxArt) will partner with artists and Scrollathon-founders Steven and William Ladd to engage community organizations across the Phoenix Metro region who will create a large-scale community-made artwork as part of the nationwide Scrollathon project. The artwork, along with a portrait mural and signature plate bearing the names of all participants, will be unveiled to the public in Arizona on October 3 as part of First Friday, a free-access day at the Museum featuring hands-on artmaking activities and gallery activations. On September 17, the Ladds will appear in conversation with Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO, to share more about the Arizona chapter of Scrollathon and how the work will represent the 48^th state in 2026. Tickets to the artist talk featuring the Ladd brothers in September are available here. Tickets to October First Friday are available here. 

“Phoenix Art Museum is excited to bring community members together to create art and meaningful moments of connection as part of the National Scrollathon® initiative,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “Over nearly two decades, the Ladds have engaged with tens of thousands of individuals from different walks of life to build community, understanding, and art, and as the representing institution for Arizona at next year’s Kennedy Center semiquincentennial celebration, we’re honored to join in this important work and welcome many valued community organizations to our space in the spirit of creativity, collaboration, and unity.”  

projects that worked with found and upcycled materials to engage participants in the creative process. Taking cues from the traditions of quilting bees and story circles, the artist-guided Scrollathon workshops provide participants with a welcoming environment and opportunity to play, talk, and think, resulting in art objects that are imbued with personal and universal meaning.  

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts selected the Ladds to lead the creation of an encompassing visual art installation, the National Scrollathon®, that would bring together the collaborative creative expression and engagement of more than 250,000 participants from all over the United States, including organizations across all 50 states, Washington, D.C., five U.S. territories, and several tribal nations. In September 2025, the Ladds will launch the Arizona chapter of National Scrollathon® at Phoenix Art Museum by inviting 250 participants from across the 48th state to create individual scrolls expressing their personal stories during community artmaking workshops led by the artist-brothers.  

Each Scrollathon participant will create two scrolls made from two strips of fabric that are tightly rolled and secured with a pin. The first scroll is for the participant to keep, while the second scroll is used to create a larger artwork. After the workshops, scrolls from the whole community are brought together into a wooden frame and affixed into place. Participants’ photographic portraits are later incorporated into a photo mural and a souvenir brochure. The meditative nature of working with their hands acts as an incentive for participants to verbally and visually communicate with each other, demonstrating the power of art to unite people across backgrounds, abilities, and identities. 

Community groups who will be contributing to the Arizona chapter of National Scrollathon® include: 

The Scrollathon program at PhxArt will conclude with the unveiling of the community-made artwork on October 3 at the Museum’s on-site First Friday, a monthly free-access event with a wide range of programs and activities for visitors of all ages. A replica of the work, as well as its accompanying portrait mural and signature plate with the names of participants, will represent Arizona in the larger Scrollathon Collaborative Masterwork, which will be displayed at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from Memorial Day to Labor Day in 2026 (May 26–September 7, 2026) as part of the Center’s yearlong celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

To request interviews, high-resolution photography, or more information, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at samantha.andreacchi@phxart.org or kaylee.weyrauch@phxart.org.  

About Scrollathon at Phoenix Art Museum  

Scrollathon at Phoenix Art Museum is organized by Phoenix Art Museum in partnership with Steven and William Ladd. Its presentation at Phoenix Art Museum is coordinated by Jessica Jacobson, Director of Education, and Christian Ramírez, Cohn Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and Director of Engagement. It is made possible by Alice and Jim Bazlen, with additional support from the Angela and Leonard Singer Endowment for Performing Arts. All contemporary art exhibitions and projects are made possible in part by the Rob Walton, Jordan Rose, and Rose Law Group Fund for Contemporary Art. All exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum are underwritten by the Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Excellence Fund, founded by The Opatrny Family Foundation, with additional major support provided by Joan Cremin. 

About Phoenix Art Museum 

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has engaged millions of visitors with the art of our region and world. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, PhxArt creates spaces of exchange and belonging for all audiences through dynamic exhibitions, collections, and experiences with art. Each year, 300,000 guests on average engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern, and contemporary art and fashion design, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. PhxArt also presents live performances, outstanding examples of global cinema, arts-education programs and workshops, a monthly live-music series, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880. 

About Steven and William Ladd 

Steven and William Ladd are New York-based brothers and artists who work at the intersection of design, applied art, and fine art to create vibrant, highly textural works that evoke childhood memories. William discovered beading at 15, and Steven began making clothes while studying at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. After moving to Brooklyn to collaborate, their formal artistic partnership began in 2000 while creating accessories that attracted interest from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, which included their work in a major exhibition. Selected for the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt’s Design Triennial in 2006, the Ladd’s artworks began representing people, places, and memories of their shared childhood, an evolving theme throughout their practice.  

Over their careers, the Ladds have developed an interactive and hands-on approach to artmaking that melds fine art, design, and craft with their dedication to interactive collaboration, education, and community engagement. In all their work, the importance of meaningful content couched in a visual language of beauty has guided them from small scale, intimate sculptural objects to what has now become an ongoing, inclusive, and embracing project under the umbrella of what they call Scrollathon. The content of their individual artworks is often drawn from their own shared memories and experiences, and it is through this lens that 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. 

About Scrollathon 

The Ladd Brothers invented the concept and title of Scrollathon in 2006 to describe collaborative projects working with found and upcycled materials that are intended to engage participants in the creative process, sharing and making both as individuals and as a group. Taking cues from the traditions of quilting bees and story circles, the Scrollathon, guided by the artists, provides participants with pressure-free opportunities to play, talk, and think—riffing on everyone’s improvisation to make art objects that are imbued with personal and universal meaning.  

The project began in the artists’ hometown of St. Louis but quickly grew to include special education students in Brooklyn, individuals in the custody of the NYC Department of Corrections at Rikers Island (the results became part of an installation in Brooklyn later that year that was featured in Architectural Digest), and diverse communities across the United States. A 2014 Scrollathon at the Parrish Art Museum, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, involved more than 1,100 participants in a single community for the first time, sparking the movement that has reached thousands more across the United States and created monumental artworks celebrated by the communities where they are installed.  

Using humble materials, fostering an environment of love and encouragement, Scrollathon continues to reach people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds, promoting reflection, healing, joy, and accomplishment, and giving each participant the pride of being part of something greater than themselves. The May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation and the Acronym Fund are both generous donors to the National Scrollathon.