On Tuesday, 100 individuals came together at the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts (CMCArts) to help create a collaborative scroll that will represent the U.S. Virgin Islands in Washington D.C. Nonprofits, schools, community leaders, and other members of the community stopped by to participate in this once and a lifetime event.
The National Scrollathon will culminate in a campus-wide exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2026 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America. CMCArts was selected to host the Scrollathon on St. Croix. Other Scrollathons will be held in all 50 states and five inhabited territories. The National Scrollathon is expected to bring together the creative expression of over 250,000 people from all over the country in a spectacular, collaborative, multidimensional display of American unity in the nation’s capital.
At a session held at CMCArts, participants were welcomed by William and Steven Ladd, the co-founders of Scrollathon and brothers. The session began with a simple yet creative activity: using just two pieces of fabric, participants rolled the material into scrolls, forming colorful patterns. The fabric pieces, each featuring unique shades and designs, symbolized personal stories for the individuals creating them.
Participants crafted their own scrolls to keep, placing a personal message inside a protective case. Additionally, they contributed to a collaborative masterwork by creating a second scroll. Each person also had the opportunity to be photographed for a souvenir publication, and some were selected to record their stories for Scrollathon’s “American Storyteller” series.
Fifth-grade teacher from the Claude O. Markoe Elementary School, Crystal Peter, said that for her students, “It was something very different.”
“The fact that it made them think outside of the box. They basically related two pieces of fabric to something personal in their life,” she said. Peter shared some of the personal stories that the students gave during their explanation of their scrolls and was impressed by how deeply they thought about their selections.
“Knowing that their work will be in a museum is something exciting for them,” said Peter.
“Our goal is to unite America,” said William Ladd.
“That’s been our goal from the beginning and the one way to do that is to work with people, talk with people and listen to their story and show that all people’s stories are all so similar. Most people seem to want the same things and want the same thing within the community,” he said.
William and Steven said that in 2006, after being invited to come and work with a group of kids, it became a process of working with materials and textiles for their artwork.
“We thought it would be really simple to bring a lot of materials and dump it on the ground and we started working with them making scrolls and it was super successful. And then we were at an exhibition at the Smithsonian Design Museum and included all the scrolls that were in the landscape for that exhibition,” said Steven Ladd.
Fifteen years later, the Ladd brothers were invited to speak at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. During the conversation, they were asked to share their dreams for the future. Deborah Rutter, president of the center, recognized the potential of their vision and deemed it an ideal project to celebrate the center’s 250th anniversary.
William and Steven explained that they engage with thousands of institutions, highlighting CMCArts as a key cultural motivator and influencer in the Virgin Islands. When they reached out to CMCArts, they received an immediate response.
On Thursday, the completed scroll representing the U.S. Virgin Islands will be revealed at CMCArts from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
To find out more about the Scrollathon and see some other completed scrolls, click here.
