Pasadena
— the morning the parade hasn't started yet.
Not only on a wall.
“A city the rest of California uses as shorthand for January first. The San Gabriels rise behind it, dry and grey-blue, and Colorado Boulevard runs east to west under jacarandas that bloom purple in May. Rose Parade in winter, Huntington gardens in spring, Old Pasadena most weekends. The light here is the dry, particular light that made Caltech build telescopes.
Pasadena, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Pasadena sits at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, about 11 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles in Los Angeles County. The city was incorporated in 1886 and grew up around the Indiana Colony's citrus groves and a winter-resort economy along the Arroyo Seco. Its population is roughly 138,000. Caltech, the Huntington Library, the Norton Simon Museum, and the Rose Bowl stadium all sit within a few square miles, anchoring an urban density unusual for Southern California.
Pasadena's calendar bends around the Tournament of Roses, first run on New Year's Day 1890 by members of the Valley Hunt Club. The parade now draws roughly 700,000 spectators to Colorado Boulevard, followed by the Rose Bowl game at the stadium that opened in 1922. The route, the float-building barns, and the post-parade Showcase of Floats are all walkable. The rest of the year the city is quieter. Jacarandas in May, jazz at the Levitt Pavilion in summer, the Doo Dah Parade in fall.
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, off Allen Avenue, is the single longest visit Pasadena offers. 130 acres of gardens, three galleries, and Henry Huntington's 1910 mansion. Reservations are required, and Tuesdays are closed. The Norton Simon Museum, on Colorado Boulevard at the parade's western anchor, holds a strong European collection from Raphael to Picasso. Old Pasadena, the brick-and-iron district below city hall, runs late on weekends. Most of the city's best walking happens before noon, before the inland heat builds.