Collaboration with passersby at ASID booth

Don’t Be A Bitch Be A Full Time Baller, 2014, fiber, pins, ultrasuede,
archival board, pins, thread, grosgrain tab, 3 1/2 x 30 1/4 x 3 inches,

The American Association of Interior Designers (ASID) invited Steven and William Ladd to collaborate with their members at the Dwell on Design Event. Participants made individual keepsake scrolls, saved in custom boxes (see opposite page), then continued scroll-making for the collaborative artwork pictured here. 

20 years ago, William and Steven Ladd met and befriended Judith Nordgren, a sponsor of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum Triennial. She introduced them to Kevin Mulvaney at the ASID booth (in the Swell on Design Fair, Soho), who was looking for ways to actively engage visitors to the trade show. The Ladds’ earlier experiences with encouraging people at casual public events to join Scrollathon activities led to an unplanned trade show experience. ASID provided custom boxes which they had on hand, to be used as keepsake boxes for participants’ handmade scrolls—a serendipitous coincidence fulfilling a goal the Ladd’s had long held for Scrollathon. Custom labeled souvenir tins are now an integral part of all Scrollathon events!

During the trade show, the Ladd’s set up in the ASID booth and began inviting casual passersby to try their hands at scrolling. Personal scrolls were made and boxed before participants moved on to contribute additional scrolls to a collaborative artwork. Winging it all day at the booth, William and Steven finessed the process and reveled in the creative endeavor that unfolded. In spite of all the fun, in the aftermath, William and Steven “realized that the scrolling (had) lacked the level of deep, interpersonal storytelling and meaning that scrolling releases when we provide individual sessions in a controlled environment, where we take people on this journey of storytelling and sharing. We realized that evolving the format we’d been developing was actually more meaningful for us than repeating it, and for the people engaging with us.” 

The artwork’s title originated in a conversation with Kevin Mulvaney when Steven said he wasn’t going on a family golf trip that all the men in his family take every year, because he’s not a golfer. Kevin said it was the same story in his family, but he goes because “even though it’s not something I enjoy, I want to spend time with my family, and so I get out there and just go with them.” Steven looked at him and blurted out, “So don’t be a bitch, be a full-time baller!” Laughing, we all said that would be the perfect name for this piece—it's not always about you!

A second serendipitous happening: a delivery of the tiny balls, visibly rolled up and clustered in the finished artwork, are scraps leftover from the interior design industry. Slated for disposal, they were sent by ASID to the Ladd studio where they were up-cycled into this artwork!