The Animation Expo in Burbank is a place for women illustrators, animators

Ruby Roth both writes and illustrates books for children, espousing the vegan diet.

The city of Burbank welcomed the Animation Expo four or five years ago. It is a free event to showcase the work of young animators and illustrators.

This colorful character is the “mascot” for the Animation Expo.

It began as an open air fair adjacent to the long-running Burbank Art Fair and has grown every year.  In fact, it attracts more foot traffic than the Art Fair these days.

This year young women illustrators, designers, authors, animators and all-around artists were a significant presence.  Here are a few of them.

Aiysha Sinclair wrote and illustrated her book, Brown Sugar Fairies.

The people around Tara Whitaker’s booth seemed to be a study in teal, including the hair of one visitor.

Illustrator and storyboard artist Isabelle Gedigk standing beside a poster of a book she illustrated.

The Animation Expo brings out people in colorful clothing.

Not an animator. Not an illustrator, but I loved the way her blue hair matched her blouse.  Surprisingly, there were no leaves at all on the jacaranda trees that line San Fernando Blvd. where the expo was held.  No purple jacaranda blooms yet, either.

 

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Summer Fair season gets going with the Burbank Art Street Fair

I love hand blown glass and the vessels created by Rick Hunter are gorgeous..

I went this the Burbank Spring Art Fair with the intention of photographing people who attended, but decided to show some of the art for sale instead.

Little kids played with bubbles while one of those bubble machines ran in the background.

At the time I was there on Saturday there were relatively few people shopping at the fair — at least compared to the thousands who thronged the Burbank Fair ten years ago.

On the other hand, the Animation Expo–which will be in the next post–was very busy.  A generational thing, I guess.

This is unusual! The artist cut up Persian carpeting and transformed the bits and pieces into vessels.  She’s on Istagram at Angela Art.

A metal and rope sculptured head.

I don’t know the name of the artist or the sculpture but to me it looks like “Jazz Man”.

The artist, Kay Jones, who created these masks told me she had planned to do gourd art handbags for 5 years, but has just kept on going with the addition of these fantastic masks.  She also sells gourd purses on etsy.

 

The message in this metal wall art by Mountain Metals appeals to me.

The 19th Century Musicale is alive and well in Pasadena

On the first Tuesday every month at 12:30 p.m., you can travel back in time to an experience that would have been familiar to Jane Austen, Queen Victoria and other ladies of the 19th Century.  Members of the Tuesday Musicale of Pasadena perform classical music in the Wright auditorium at the Pasadena Library in a free recital. They even offer a modest ‘tea’ afterwards.

If you close your eyes, you can imagine refined ladies in long pastel dresses sitting around a drawing room while their talented friends–singers, pianists, cellists–perform works by Mozart, Bach, Offenbach and others.

I am marking this up as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, mostly because I am not a particular fan of soprano solos.

Ruth Ridenour and Maria del Pilar Gomez performed a comic duet composed by Rossini, the same composer who brought you the theme song for the Lone Ranger.

This recital is one of several free concerts given monthly around Pasadena. I particularly like the concerts held on the third Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Methodist Church because it often features organ music which I like. The Presbyterian Church also offers free noontime concerts as well as evening ones.

Pasadena has from almost its beginning back in 1874 prided itself on being a cultural center. And, as I discovered in a corner of the main hall on my way to the recital, the Library has a longer history than I knew.

Tucked into a corner in the main hall of the Pasadena Library is this model made by Rex Perry of an 1887 version of the Library. The current Central Library was built in 1927.

Technically this is the back of the library but most people enter it from this parking lot.

The main hall of the Pasadena Central Library. All the doors on the left lead to the fiction stacks. It is a beautiful building–much better than that Victorian one above.

The Wright Auditorium where the monthly recital is held.

 

 

Edible dates hang heavy on the palm trees on Arroyo Parkway

A few years ago the city of Pasadena changed trees in the center of the Arroyo Parkway, the city street at the end of the 110 freeway.  Out went the tall leafy trees and in came palms.  Date palms to be more precise.  And every year these palms produce huge amounts of dates, which, sadly, go uneaten by humans.  I think birds may feast on them.

Women’s March in Los Angeles, January 2018

 

I think there were more anti-Trump posters this year. And quite a few signs about #MeToo and #TimesUp.  There is an auction of celebrity black dresses  from the Golden Globe Awards on ebay for Time’s Up.  

City officials and Metro were expecting a larger crowd at the Women’s March this year and it may have been true. Unlike New York, Boston or Chicago, the weather was beautiful in Los Angeles: temperature in the low 60sF and clear skies and no circling helicopters which there had been last year.

Here are some photos.

Already 390 women are running for seats in Congress in the election this year.  And thousands more are running for state and local offices.  

I like the play on words of “ReSister”  on this sign I saw as the Women’s March Los Angeles was getting  started in Pershing Square.

Dressed as a Native American, the sign reads “Women’s Justice Juarez.” There were many men at this year’s march.

A Handmaid in the Metro station. Things could be far far worse for women in the U.S. as the Handmaid’s Tale reminds us.

3 friends. 2 pussy hats. Big smiles.

The crowd turned this corner and began to mass in front of the Los Angeles City Hall.  I noticed a sign for Kamala Harris in 2020.  Almost everyone was more concerned with voting in 2018.

I loved the spirit of a “New Day” coming for this group. I sure hope it is!

As always there were a few street vendors selling hot dogs wrapped in bacon. This woman seemed to have a lot of vegetables on her grill.  The sign attached to the fence behind her is apt.

Singing on a raft at Fiesta Perpetua on Echo Park Lake

On a raft in the lake the singer twirled a red ribbon to signal the band to begin playing and marching.

The Fiesta Perpetua on and around Echo Park lake was the brainchild of Carmina Escobar as her contribution to the huge Pacific Standard Time LA/LA.

The way it worked was this:  a woman went out to a raft in the lake and using three wooden megaphones sang to an audience of paddleboaters and people lining the walkway and lounging on the lawn around the lake.

Singing through the megaphones. Because Echo Park lake is in a “bowl” there were echos which added to the performance.

Echo Park lake has a facility for renting paddleboats and paddleboaters lined up near the raft to see and hear the performance.  Other paddleboaters followed along beside the band as it marched around the lake.

Actually, before she began to sing, a band, the Maqueos Music Filharmonica began to play and march around the lake slowly.  In my opinion, the band was the star of the performance. .

Maqueos Music is an academy for young musicians and this band played what sounded as if it were a traditional Mexican song.  I think the music was of Yucatan origin. Maybe

 

The band began in two separate locations and began to play, marching toward each other and soon merging into one.

 

Because I love Echo Park and the lake and the surrounding area are among my favorite places in Los Angeles, I’m also including photos of the area on a sunny, 85F degree Saturday afternoon in January.

The fountain at the center of Echo Park lake. The park is famous for its lotus blossoms  which bloom in the north end of the lake and the Lotus Festival which occurs in July.

If you’re going to sell fruit from a cart in Los Angeles, it better be organic!

When Echo Park was refurbished a few years ago, a playground was added for children. Very popular!

This photo has nothing to do with the Fiesta Perpetua. It is simply of colorful homes behind the Episcopalian church facing the lake.

 

 

Decorating the Rose Parade float in South Pasadena

The “body” of this float is a old time car and these two women were pasting seeds on the fender for a black accent.

The city of South Pasadena always enters a float in the Tournament of Roses parade and the float is always decorated by local volunteers.

An artist’s rendering of what the float will look like when completed.

The location for the float is under a huge tent just off Mound St. at Fair Oaks in South Pasadena and they are still busily adding seeds, leaves and flowers.  They have only 2 more days to go. By Sunday evening they have to have the float in line for the start of the parade on Monday morning.

A local resident adds black seeds to a megaphone that goes on the trailer behind the float. It will be added later.

Scaffolding surrounds the float. The giraffe which will eventually be set upright is still on its back waiting to be covered with plant material.

All visible surfaces on every float in the Rose Parade must be covered with plant parts of some sort: seeds, leaves, etc. Before they get pasted on, however, artists paint colors matching the flowers that will be added on top.

The brown convertible top (folded back) is covered with dried sycamore leaves. I wonder if they just wandered around South Pas and picked the leaves out of people’s gardens. Sycamore trees are everywhere.

Red beans are used for color on the tires.

Yellow flowers in these buckets will be added to the float at the last minute.  Seeds and dried leaves and dried fruits always go on first.

 

 

Many floats are built and decorated in huge permanent barns in Irwindale. South Pasadena’s “barn” is a huge tent which comes down after the parade.