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Ken Larson's Alternative Site is just for fun.
Kenneth A. Larson has a quarter century of experience in design and construction of scenery for the Entertainment Industry and Theme Parks using Computer Aided and Traditional approaches to Design. Also experience in other areas of Design.

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Decorating a Rose Parade Float

Building the Natural History Museum (on a Rose Parade Float)

I've designed and built scenery for movies, TV, and theme parks for a third of a century. I've even help decorate the Hart Museum float for the Newhall Fourth of July Parade a few times. But I never decorated a Rose Parade float - until today.

A call went out from the Natural History Museum for volunteers to decorate the first NHM Rose Parade float. I answered the call. I arrived at Phoenix Decorating on December 29 at 6:30 am, because there is limited street parking. Phoenix has two float barns, at this location, there were about nine other floats. The Lutheran Petal Pushers coordinated most of the volunteers, but the NHM and Loyola Marymount University recruited their own. The NHM check-in desk was ready about 7:45. The Phoenix people weren't ready for us, but that was a good thing. We had so many volunteers that they needed to set up more scaffolds to hold us all. The float barn had an isle down the middle with six floats side by side on one side about ten feet apart, and several smaller ones on the other side. There is an observation platform at the front where people can come and watch.

To start, they set us all to doing something simple and one by one gave us each a task with a little training. So I spent the first hour cutting straw flowers into tiny little pieces. Later these would be run through a blender to make them into almost a powder. I was assigned to place black beans on the wall of the facsimile NHM 1913 building to make a frame around the sign. There were five rows of beans in the stripe, about 20 beans to the inch, about 5 minutes per inch. Each bean had to be placed so the white dot from the stem didn't show. If you think this sounds tedious, it wasn't. It was very tedious. I spent about two hours standing with one foot on a scaffold and the other on the float. Finally my legs hurt so bad and had to ask to do something else. I had completed about 3 feet of beans, one quarter of the frame, and there was another one on the other side.

I went back to flowers for a while. A group of volunteers left the flowers to cut brussels sprouts in half to later apply to the T-Rex. About an hour after lunch I became a roofer. We glued corn husks (tamale covers that a team had ironed) to the dome of the museum until we ran out of husks and I realized my shift had been over for an hour. If this sounds tedious, you are right. My fingers were stuck together with rubber cement, but eventually it rubbed off.

Decorating these floats is so time consuming, it would be impossible to do the job without lots of volunteers. It was a once in a lifetime experience. Am I glad I did it, yes. Will I do it again, probably not.

This site is a light hearted alternative to my commercial design portfolio site. This site's only purpose is for your enjoyment. There is no paid advertising and I make no profit. If your are in need of a designer, please check my commercial site www.kesigndesign.com. A non-tax deductable donation to help cover the costs may be made at the Contact page.

This site maintained by Kenneth A. Larson.
Copyright © 2000 - 2012, Kenneth A. Larson. All Rights Reserved.
Website content including photographic and graphic images may not be redistributed for use on another website.

This page last updated: Sunday, 08-Jan-2012 20:59:29 PST

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