Lead With a Laugh
Sarasota Art Museum
Sarasota, Florida
2022 - 2023
All Installation images Ryan Gamma
“Steven and William Ladd: Lead With a Laugh illustrates the collaborative pursuit of two artist brothers who create elaborate portraits with beads, textiles, and trinkets, as well as drawings, sculptures, glassworks, and handbound books. With deeply committed and focused methods of making, their artworks evolve through conversation - reminiscing on shared experiences and dreams for the future. Their works remain rooted in these personal narratives that inform their creative process, personifying people, places, and most importantly, memories.”
“Aligned with their practice of storytelling, the exhibition narrates various episodes of Steven and William Ladd’s collective career - those of past, present, and future - with anecdotes that recall the memories and recent encounters that characterize their work. Like any compelling story, there are twists and turns that mark defining moments in the Ladds’ lives and artistic practices. While the artists originally recalled shared childhood memories to inspire their works, as of 2017, their process has evolved. The acquisition of property in the Hudson Valley—named Santo Poco—for their studio and an extensive archive of their works, realized a lifelong dream for the artists, who spent their childhood immersed in the outdoors. Returning to nature—a place of wonder and endless possibilities—shifted Steven and William’s perspective, and they now explore recent experiences and future imaginings as catalysts for creation.”
“Family Tree,” 2021. Over more than a decade we’ve created thousands of photographic portraits of people we’ve engaged with during the Scrollathon. And in our more personal artistic practice we’ve been finding ways to incorporate the portrait and the figure increasingly over the last few years. Early on in our practice William would always travel with a small beading kit and make miniature beaded trees with tiny seed beads. These little creations would be clustered together in our large floor landscapes to create forests of trees that represented the memories of places in our lives. His “bead kit” has transformed dramatically in the past two years and he now travels with a photographic portrait of one of our family members and in his “off” he methodically beads the portrait using thread and tiny seed beads. Pivoting from the idea of building forests through one-by-one beading of trees, he decided he wanted to build a different kind of tree, our Family Tree. He’s utilized existing portraits of family members, reached out to the younger generation for those we didn’t have and tapped into archival photographs of those grandparents who are no longer with us.
“While they have expanded their conceptual interests, the core of their practice remains: constructing microcosms of memory. Their works, sometimes abstract, but more recently introducing the figure, are grounded by their passion to connect. Whether it’s flashbacks to their days as cub scouts, dancing the tango in their home’s basement in St. Louis, or building small shelters amidst ant hills at Santo Poco, each artwork’s colors, configuration, and rhythm echo their experiences. These episodes are seemingly small and self-contained, yet they hold universal truths that speak to a greater human narrative about what it means to grow up, find your sense of self, face hardship, and enjoy some laughs along the way. “
Petit Fours, 2022
Archival board, fiber, papier-mâché, beads, and pins. 10 ⅛ x 10 ⅛ x 3 ½ in.
Every Christmas our mom ordered the precious petit fours from The Swiss Colony. They came in a gold box and looked like a treasure chest in the fridge. When you opened the lid it revealed a gridded landscape of delicious treats within. They were the ultimate luxury in our household and we always felt “rich” for having them.
Parts of Me 1-12, 2021
Archival paper and ink. 8 ½ x 11 in. (each)
During the pandemic we isolated in the woods of upstate New York. It was a time of emotional transitions and William and I spent time looking deeply within. I’d been listening to a million podcasts and one came on about Internal Family Systems, which challenges you to look at one's own sub-personalities. I’d just opened up some paper to begin a new series of drawings. Having wanted to incorporate the figure I thought to use different postures to represent each of my 12 sub-personalities.
Shaboygen, 2012
Board, plywood, metal, fiber, beads, paper, tulle, angora bunny hair, and pins. 80 ¼ x 53 ½ x 3-11 in. (each)
The name comes from a high school memory that evolved into a code word for us that meant “utopia.” We were in Angela’s basement and Mr. Veniga was telling us about the most incredible party he had been to in Sheboygan, “Where beer cans lined the streets!” We all started chanting “Shaboygen,” unaware of the true spelling or that it was a real place. For decades after, when we envisioned living in a utopia, we called it Shaboygen. The word came to symbolize a beautiful place where our future would unfold. The green textile landscape calls to mind “Emerald City,” the pristine emerald green (inside and out!) Mercury Cougar XR7 given to us by our maternal grandmother. We’d pack our friends in like a clown car and race around St. Louis in various states of debauchery. The red scroll landscape embodies the moment we pulled up to our high school in our wood trimmed station wagon. Our brother, Matt, was driving and we noticed smoke coming in through the vents. We parked on the street behind the football field and jumped out and opened the hood of the car to a roar of fire that consumed the entire car. Students filled the nearby bleachers watching our beautiful station wagon burn and cheered “Burn! Burn! Burn!” One of the landscapes has cutouts or extracted sections, alluding to the darker aspects of the high school experience, like the terror of being in the closet in an all-boys school. The final landscape clusters multiple memories. Each box contains its own backstory: the white beaded trees were inspired by a visit to Lindsay’s house on Goose Creek, where we looked out the glass window to see her brother Scott holding fireworks in his hand as they exploded into a symphony of colors.
Image Cristina Grajales Gallery