“When William and I were in high school–he was a freshman and I was a sophomore–we had the same lunch period. We didn’t have enough money to really buy lunch, but we did have 50 cents to share a Nutty Bar. So we would get a Nutty Bar from the vending machine, split it, and instead of sitting there at lunch, watching everybody else eat, we would pull our socks over our pants, skip through the hallways from the first floor all through the fourth floor, just as a little moment of joy. Our friends in the classrooms would look out for us. We called it the Nutty Bar Brigade,” recalls Steven Ladd.

“PURPLE MAQUETTE,” 2012. ARCHIVAL BOARD, FIBER, AND METAL. STEVEN AND WILLIAM LADD. COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS AND CRISTINA GRAJALES GALLERY.

Stories such as this–the Nutty Bar Brigade came to life as a piece in 2012–are rife throughout the Ladd’s career: the brothers Steven and William, have long used materials such as beads and textiles to create abstract elicitations of their shared memories. In their new exhibition Steven and William Ladd: Lead with a Laugh, debuting this September at the Sarasota Art Museum, the brothers will be venturing into new territory–chronicling the people and experiences that shape their present-day lives. “Since before the pandemic, we’ve been developing this whole new body of work of intricately beaded large landscapes that are all about the present and the future–where are we headed in our lives? What’s our impact in society and what’s our impact in the world?” says William.

INSTALLATION VIEW OF “STEVEN AND WILLIAM: LEAD WITH A LAUGH” AT SARASOTA ART MUSEUM, SEPTEMBER 4 - FEBRUARY 5, 2023, PHOTO BY RYAN GAMMA.

This shift in focus has resulted in twelve new landscapes –large scale abstract works featuring hand sewn boxes with various beaded objects in and around them–that will be on display in Lead with a Laugh, along with the Ladd’s newest direction: Portraiture, but with their own unique spin on it. “In the past, we were working on portraits of memories and of people, but they took the shape of these abstracted landscapes. Now, we’re really interested in exploring how to represent the people and experiences that have influenced us in the present in a more figurative way,” says Steven.

DETAIL VIEW OF “ THE HILL SIDE”, 2022, ARCHIVAL BOARD, FIBER, BEADS, METAL, PLYWOOD, COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS.

The title of the exhibition is not only a reference to the Ladd’s infectious energy and joyous spirit, but also an ode to the exhibition’s larger function as a visual memoir of the brothers’ career. “If you were to write a memoir, where would you start? A lot of memoir authors actually suggest that you lead with an anecdote that makes you laugh,” says curator Emory Conetta. Lead with a Laugh, which traces through the brothers’ artistic history, will include past works in addition to new pieces making their debut. “When you look back on all the significant moments of your life, what do they tell you about who you are as a person and how do they inform how you’ll live in the future?” says Conetta. The result is at once a retrospective on their career progression–chronicling a pivot in style from hand-sewn boxes encapsulating intricately beaded objects to open-topped boxes containing ‘landscapes’ evocative of childhood memories and a freer style–and a look toward their future.

“When we first started, we were making these hand sewn boxes that contained intricate accessories and design objects. In 2008, we really pivoted to no longer including the design object within the boxes and just making these artistic landscapes about our shared memories,” says Steven.

Then in 2012, the Ladd’s made the Nutty Bar Brigade, which was emblematic of another shift to a more stripped down style that featured just the hand sewn boxes themselves. That transition led to the brothers experimenting with different materials, such as paper mache. “The boxes had become more and more intricate - everything was hand stitched and had to be perfect. Eventually, we started doing more things that were still really intricate, but a little bit more free, like pinning beads into paper mache and allowing the pieces to be a little bit rougher and larger as opposed to a hand stitched box,” attests William. In recent years, the Ladd’s style has come full circle as their subject matter has become more topical. The “major career pivot” from sewing beads to pinning them has once again shifted to sewing–evident in both the brothers’ intricately beaded landscapes and hand sewn portraiture. It’s a fitting transition for the pair, an acknowledgement of their growth into a different stage in their lives–that their art will always return to the people and the places that have shaped them, from childhood to middle age.