Afloat in Creativity

Since 1890, when the Tournament of Roses parade began with flower-covered horse-drawn carriages, thousands of floats have passed down Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard, delighting New Year’s Day revelers. We asked noted Southern California artists, architects and graphic designers to dream up floats to illustrate this year’s theme: Celebrate Family. No rules or physical realities--such as gravity--would inhibit artistic license. Flowers were optional.

Gary Baseman’s trademark oval-eyed cats--dad, mom, big brother and baby--are part of his whimsical menagerie that graces magazines, books, animated cartoons and art toys. In homage to the Rose Parade, he outfitted his feline family in red-and-pink floral outfits and gave the baby roses to hold. “The family is playing on the lawn together. Dad is happy, the family on his back is light as a feather,” Baseman says. “But dad won’t be happy when he gets the bill for the float, outfits and my design fee.” Float materials: red, white and pink roses and peonies. Upcoming exhibition: “For the Love of Toby,” Billy Shire Gallery, Los Angeles, spring 2005.

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Peter Shire, one of the original members of the Milan-based Memphis design group in the ‘80s, is known for his sculptural geometric teapots and, more recently, stainless-steel sculptures. He has combined both in his float. A stainless-steel nuclear family stands on the float’s prow. At the rear, a Shire teapot with a sunflower growing out of the spout symbolizes the world, held up by Atlas. In between, a unicyclist balances over a bed of barrel cactus and a narrow bar above him is mounted with the “Word.” “The words ‘family values’ are loaded at this time. It has become a buzzword,” Shire says. “But no one group can expropriate it for their own. If you overbalance ‘the word,’ you end up in a bed of cactus. Family values have become a thorny issue.” Float materials: mini barrel cactus grafted with intense orange and hot pink colors; clay, painted steel and painted aluminum.

Upcoming exhibition: “Pylon Top,” Frank Lloyd Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, Nov. 19-Dec. 31, 2005.

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Frank Romero

Like his paintings, Frank Romero’s float incorporates iconic Southern California imagery: cars, palm trees, urban skylines and freeways. “I lived in Boyle Heights overlooking downtown when I was a kid,” he says. “We had this ’55 Ford Country Squire with a white body, wood sides and a red-vinyl interior. Sundays my dad would load us into the car. We drove everywhere. Freeways were just getting started back then. In the early days we didn’t have all the jams we do today. I still enjoy driving all around town.” Float materials: crushed turquoise, poinsettias, red and white roses and California palm trees.

Upcoming exhibition: March 5-April 16 at Patricia Correia Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica.

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April Greiman’s surreal launch spins off from the idea of “float.” An amorphous body of water hovers above the street, while disparate 99-Cents store items--suggesting the unique combinations of today’s families--float by. Among the abstracted objects: a banana, a head of iceberg lettuce, a child’s blue helmet, an orange flipper, a yellow “unidentified floating object (UFO)” and a soft, furry dragonfly. “It’s a floating float with a family of objects drifting into the onlooker’s cone of vision,” Greiman says. Float materials: black-spined prickly pear, biznaga cactus, Asiatic dayflower, fishhook barrel cactus, plastic, strawberry pitaya and daylily.

Upcoming exhibition: “Objects in Space,” at the Nova Ljubljanska Banka, Ljubljana, Slovenia, through January.

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Peter Alexander--perhaps best known for his paintings of local sunsets on black velvet--memorializes Southern California’s ubiquitous family pool. Rendered as a blue rectangular cube, the float is a compilation of paintings of the plunge at Santa Monica’s Fairmont Miramar Hotel, which Alexander did while staying there. “I grew up in Newport Beach. My life has always been centered around water,” says the surfer and former Hermosa Beach lifeguard. “You might say families that pool together stay together.”

Upcoming exhibition: “Beyond Geometry” at the Miami Art Museum, through April 24.

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Brian Murphy

Bleachers, like the ones that line the Rose Parade route, flank an Alice in Wonderland looking glass in iconoclast Brian Murphy’s float. Puffs of skywriting spell out: “Reflect . . . Reflect,” with the words echoed in the mirror’s tilted surface. “I think everyone needs to take a good look at themselves,” Murphy says. “Everyone’s family has skeletons in the closet, so everyone has work they can do to improve. It’s part of life. We’re here to learn lessons and make the world--and family--better.” Float materials: yellow chrysanthemums, daffodils, orchids and blue cornflowers.

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Robert Graham

Los Angeles’ renowned sculptor came up with an innovative float that offers food for thought for Detroit’s family of carmakers. “It’s energy-efficient,” Robert Graham says of his float, which is propelled by eight pairs of gorgeous gams. “It’s a minimal mini-float. People love parades, and they love looking at a bunch of legs and getting lots of waves. So it’s a basic float of great legs and waves.” Float materials: “Girls are real with real arms and real legs; the float itself is rendered in flax seeds.”

Upcoming exhibitions: Imago Galleries, Palm Desert, Jan. 7- Feb. 13. “Robert Graham: The Female Form,” a 40-year survey exhibition of sculptures, drawings, photographs and video, Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills, Jan. 15-March 26.

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But physical realities do loom large for another key component of the parade--the 18 bands that will participate this year. On Page 32 we salute some of the parade’s hardiest foot soldiers, the tuba and sousaphone players who carry their 45-pound instruments for the 5.5 mile route, in front of spectators who camp out all night. For those hearty parade watchers, our survival guide on page 36 should help make the wait on the cold pavement more bearable.