Public Commissions

Kickboard

2012

Commissioned by: NADA Hudson, curated by Queenie Wang and Yolande Whitcomb, Hudson, New York
Medium: Textile trimmings, wood, paint
Dimensions: Approximately 8 ft. high × 34 ft. wide (modular)
Photograph: Courtesy of the artists
Artists’ Registration Numbers: 2012.056.001 – 2012.067.001 (Panels 1–12)
Exhibition History: NADA Hudson, Basilica Hudson, Hudson, New York, 2012. Curators: Queenie Wang and Yolande Whitcomb. Function + Fantasy: Steven and William Ladd, Mingei International Museum, San Diego, California, 2015. Curator: Christine Knoke. Shaboygen, The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn, New York, 2012. Curator: Steven and William Ladd.
Collections: Private Collections, New York.

Commission Overview
Kickboard was created for NADA Hudson, an experimental outdoor exhibition organized by the New Art Dealers Alliance in upstate New York. Curated by our friends Queenie Wang and Yolande Whitcomb, the project invited a group of artists to create large-scale, site-specific works for the grounds of Basilica Hudson. It was our first visit to the Hudson Valley and the beginning of a relationship with the region that would eventually inspire us to plant roots and build a studio there.

Artistic Approach
With a modest budget and a desire to go bold, we turned to a memory from childhood: the giant blue kickboard our dad helped build at Mary Queen of the Universe, our Catholic grade school. That wall, used for sports drills, practice, and play, became a kind of architectural echo of our youth, repetitive, physical, and deeply communal.

Context and Legacy
This was our first time working in the Hudson Valley, and it sparked something profound. The landscape, the community, and the experience of building Kickboard planted the earliest seeds of our dream to one day return, build a studio, and work from this region. That dream has since come true, and Kickboard remains a symbolic threshold between memory and vision, between past and future.

We created a modular sculptural wall composed of eleven wood-framed textile-panels, each about eight feet tall. Across them, we hand-strung layers of vibrant textile trimmings—blues, greens, and purples—into a rhythmic grid of horizontal stripes. We manipulated the materials with knotting, braiding, twisting, and bundling techniques to create variation, depth, and tactility. These small interventions brought intimacy to an otherwise bold and monolithic form.

Installed outdoors, the panels were tied together with more trimmings, forming an accordion-like structure that visitors could step into and disappear within. It was playful, private, and unexpectedly emotional.

Engagement and Impact
Visitors moved around and through the piece, immersing themselves in color, texture, and form. Kickboard offered a place of both spectacle and shelter, a sculptural intervention that transformed memory into spatial experience. It blurred the lines between architecture, textile, and childhood play.

Following the exhibition, the installation was deconstructed into individual panels. Many were acquired by private collectors, and several have since been reinstalled in museum exhibitions. Though initially conceived as a temporary outdoor work, its components have continued to live on and evolve.

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