Public Commissions

You and Me, Me and You, All of Us Together

National Scrollathon: Florida

2022

Commissioned by: Sarasota Art Museum at Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida
Medium: Fiber, rubber bands, pins, ink, glue, wood, paint
Dimensions: 96 × 96 × 3½ in. (Collaborative Masterwork); Signature Plates, each 8½ × 11 in.
Photograph: Courtesy of the artists
Created in: Sarasota, Florida
Artists’ Registration Numbers:
Collaborative Masterworks: 2022.129.001–2022.129.037
Signature Sheets: 2022.158.001–2022.161.001
Portrait Mural: 2022.171.001
Mini Portrait Mural: 2023.099.001
Exhibition History: National Scrollathon: Florida, Sarasota Art Museum, Sarasota, Florida, 2022. Curator: Virginia Shearer.
Subsequent Installation: You and Me, Me and You, All of Us Together, Sarasota Art Museum Lobby, Sarasota, Florida, 2023–present. Curator: Virginia Shearer.

That invitation became the foundation of a full-museum collaboration and the formal beginning of the National Scrollathon as a nationwide movement. Together with curator Emory Conetta and installation coordinator Christa Molinaro, the project grew from one gallery to encompass the entire museum—its floors, lobby, and even its windows—transforming the space into an immersive environment of joy, connection, and community.

Over the course of October 2022, more than 500 participants joined in the Sarasota Scrollathon, creating hand-rolled scrolls resulting in a  Collaborative Masterwork, Portrait Mural, and Signature Plates which were unveiled during the exhibition Lead With a Laugh, which celebrated the humor, humanity, and creative generosity at the heart of the Ladds.

Commission Overview
Commissioned by the Sarasota Art Museum in 2022, You and Me, Me and You, All of Us Together inaugurated the National Scrollathon with Florida’s contribution to America’s Cultural Project, marking the official launch of the nationwide initiative Uniting America.

The project’s roots, however, run deeper. Years earlier, while serving as Head of Education at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Virginia Shearer collaborated with us on Speechless, the National Scrollathon in Georgia, which engaged more than 1,000 participants and planted the seeds of a national vision. When Virginia later became Executive Director of the Sarasota Art Museum, she reached out once again:

“We’re a new museum housed in a renovated high school,” she wrote. “The community here is thriving, but the museum is still finding its place. I can’t think of better artists to help us do that than you.”

Artistic Approach
The Collaborative Masterwork unites hundreds of hand-rolled scrolls in a luminous field of pinks, whites, and neutrals—colors chosen to evoke the Sarasota sunsets. Each participant selected two textile trimmings from a curated palette, wrapping them around a small wooden dowel and securing them with a pin before marking the scroll’s surface with their initials, or small drawings.

These acts of personalization, some intricate, others simple, transformed each scroll into a microcosm of identity within a collective whole. After each workshop, the trays of scrolls were brought to our temporary studio in the vault of the museum, where our parents filled in the remaining space with scrolls they had been creating over several years, weaving all contributions into a unified tapestry. Installed in a grid formation, the finished work resembles a constellation of lived experiences, distinct yet deeply interconnected.

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.”

The workshops also featured American Storytellers recordings, capturing reflections of empathy, laughter, and resilience.

Following the close of National Scrollathon: Florida, the Collaborative Masterwork, Signature Plates, and Portrait Mural were permanently reinstalled in the museum’s main lobby, where they continue to greet visitors—a living emblem of creativity, inclusion, and connection.

Engagement and Impact
The Sarasota Scrollathon brought together more than twenty community partners across the region, including Girls Inc., All Star Children’s Foundation, Easterseals, the Neuro Challenge Foundation for Parkinson’s, and the Gulf Coast Latin Chamber of Commerce. Participants included students, seniors, artists, and healthcare workers, each lending their hands and stories to a work of shared authorship.

One participant, Walter, a Sarasota native, reflected on his experience:

“You look at this scroll, it’s black and white. It’s not separate, it’s together…

Context and Legacy
You and Me, Me and You, All of Us Together marked the official public launch of the National Scrollathon, yet its conceptual foundation began earlier through precursor programs in Texas and Georgia in 2019. Those early projects, created in partnership with the Dallas Museum of Art and the High Museum of Art, served as prototypes, exploring how collaborative artmaking could scale nationally.

With Sarasota, that vision came fully into focus. The project was formally named and aligned with the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States, expanding into a eight-year creative journey culminating in 2026 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Sponsors
Platinum Sponsors: Shari and John Hicks

Gold Sponsors: Elaine and Bill Crouse; Mary Ann and John Meyer

Silver Sponsors: Huisking Foundation; Ernie Kretzmer and the Kretzmer Family Charitable Foundation; Elizabeth Moore; John and Charlotte Suhler

Special Thanks
Virginia Shearer, Emory Conetta, Christa Molinaro, Jess Pope, Samo Davis, and the Sarasota Art Museum team

Acknowledgments
The Scrollathon team; National Scrollathon Interns and Fellows; Timothy Lewis and Babette Husson; Charles and Barbara Ladd; Mari and Gary Teeter; Claude and Gina Falcone Skelton; and the team at Lowenstein Sandler LLP

For Sarasota Art Museum, this commission became more than an artwork, it became a defining expression of the museum’s role in fostering community through creativity. For us, it reaffirmed what Virginia Shearer first recognized: that art, when shared, builds bridges across time, geography, and difference.

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.; 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