This Anniversary Gets Me All Chalked Up

How can it be that the very first Pasadena Chalk Festival, produced by the Light Bringer Project, will soon have its 25th anniversary?

The anniversary is commemorated with an exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of History that will run through Aug. 13. More about that in a minute.

In the beginning, the two-day annual event was called Chalk It Up and was in Centennial Square in front of Pasadena City Hall.

The name changed over time:

Chalk It Up
Chalk on the Walk
Absolut Chalk
Pasadena Chalk Festival.

The Pasadena Chalk Festival even made it to the Guinness Book of World Records in 2010 when it broke the record -- with a Guinness official keeping track onsite -- for the world's "Largest Display of Chalk Pavement Art," a record that holds to this day.

You'll find a more in-depth history here.

Since 2004 it has been staged at Paseo Colorado, where it meanders along the upper and lower levels every Fathers Day weekend. There typically are 600 muralists who use more than 25,000 pieces of chalk and attract more than 100,000 visitors over the course of two days.

I went to a community reception Sunday, April 9, for the Pasadena Museum of History exhibition "Art in the Street: 25 Years of the Pasadena Chalk Festival."

It features photos of chalk art through the years, TV and print news coverage, a typical chalk muralist's space at the festival, all kinds of memorabilia and much more, including a couple of interactive opportunities.

Here are Light Bringer Project brass Tom Coston and Paddy Hurley (and yours truly) at the entrance to the exhibition. That's all chalk art you see in the entry archway (thanks to Laura Verlaque for the photo):

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Kavita Sharma and Tom watching KTLA-TV coverage of the Pasadena Chalk Festival over the years.

A full house of visitors:

If you stand in the just the right spot and place your hands just so, ask someone to take your photo holding the rose that actually is on the floor and was created by a chalk artist especially for this exhibition.

Photographer extraordinaire Brian Biery shot most (if not all) of the photos that grace the walls of the gallery. He can always be found at the Pasadena Chalk Festival, often standing on a ladder to get the perfect overhead shots of the giant chalk murals. Some of whimsical. some are likenesses of celebrities, some are copies of masterpieces. I'll just show you three:

There are several display cases filled with memorabilia. Here is one:

My granddaughter Kimberly, who lives in San Diego County, volunteered two years in a row at the chalk festival when it was Absolut Chalk in front of City Hall. Her name is included on a special list of thank-yous for people who went above and beyond over the years. (That's Tom's finger pointing at her name.)

Come see the exhibition for yourself! What I've shown you here is just a very small sampling of what you'll find. 

The 2017 Pasadena Chalk Festival is scheduled Saturday and Sunday, June 17 and 18 (Fathers Day weekend) from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Our Future Entrepreneurs

One of the many interesting things I've been doing in retirement is mentoring high school seniors involved in the L.A. Futures Academy.

On Thursday I went to TBWA\Chiat\Day with two of the Light Bringer Project staff –– Paddy Hurley and Kelly Phillips –– to speak to students from Dorsey High School's School of Business and Entrepreneurship  who have been creating a video with the intention of reimagining Dorsey, That school sometimes gets a bad rap but in reality has plenty of students like these who are college-bound and not in the least bit interested in settling for anything less than superior achievement for a bright future.

We reviewed the video and then I spoke to them about the importance of appropriate attire, conversational speaking and a well-written resume when preparing for summer internship interviews. They were actively engaged in this discussion and asked really good questions. I was asked to give them tips because I interviewed dozens of prospective interns at the high school and college level throughout my career. 

A lot of people associate Tom Coston's nonprofit Light Bringer Project only with the Pasadena Doo Dah Parade and the Pasadena Chalk Festival.

But the fact is that most of what they do on a day-to-day basis is all about providing pathways to success for children and teens in public schools in Pasadena, Los Angeles and San Francisco through arts and communications programs.

TBWA\Chiat\Day is one of the L.A. Futures Academy corporate partners. In this program, high school seniors are mentored by key staff at this and other major advertising agencies, and other mentors like yours truly come in from time to time.

Security is high. The reception area is upstairs in the yellow building and an enclosed, elevated walkway leads to all the action in the agency. 

Nobody goes across that walkway without being signed in and name tagged. I remember this well from my days in private-sector advertising and public relations before I went to work in the public sector. 

Industrial espionage is a very real issue in agencies. Here they make security appear more casual than it really is. "If found wandering, please return me to the Gatehouse."

Across the covered walkway, the cavernous agency is where very talented copywriters, graphic designers, production managers and many others create award-winning campaigns for big-time, worldwide clients. This is just a portion of the vast area:

Another mentor on Thursday was Melissa Heitman, executive project manager at TBWA\Chiat\Day. She guided the students through the process of managing a project, including overseeing every detail, following a timeline and working within a budgets.

The title on the screen when I took this photo was Be Fearless.

 

Two additional shots from Thursday's visit:

A large black RV emblazoned with a red dragon is parked outside the building. It was not in use at that moment, but ordinarily the interior serves as an innovation studio to stimulate the untapped creative ideas of staffers outside the hustle and bustle of the agency.

Paddy and I carpooled, and as we were driving through the parking lot to leave the premises an ad van pulled in. You can't tell from the photo, but the film "Avatar" was showing on the side of the van in very high definition. I think if I saw this while I was driving on the road I would be terribly distracted!

I want to thank everyone at TBWA\Chu iat\Day, Dorsey High School's School of Business and Entrepreneurship and of course Light Bringer Project.

I also serve as a mentor at the Technology Academy at Foshay Learning Center. The curriculum includes a communications and marketing component.

There are plenty of mentoring opportunities out there. I highly recommend that you give it a try, no matter which organization you work with. And you can tailor your time commitment to suit your schedule.

I took most of the photos myself; many thanks to Paddy Hurley, Kelly Phillips and TBWA\Chiat\Day for some of the others.

Honoring Doo Dah

This past Sunday in the gardens of the Fenyes Mansion on the grounds of the Pasadena Museum of History there was a special cocktail party and fund-raiser for an important retrospective.

Next month the museum will open the exhibition "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been: 35 Years of the Pasadena Doo Dah Parade."

At the event Sunday, many of the Doo Dah queens and grand marshals from throughout the years were joined by the parade organizers and other guests.

Their majesties:

Six of the queens dancing to the music of official Doo Dah band Snotty Scotty and Hankies, which has been in every parade since year one:

2011 queen Red Rosie and 2011 grand marshal Ron Stivers:

Official Doo Dah photographer Brian Biery flanked by Doo Dah aficionados Judy Kent and Jan Sanders:

(That's 2009 Doo Dah grand marshal Charles Phoenix seated at left above.)

Doo Dah czar Tom Coston welcomed everyone and read a vintage letter to the editor in the Pasadena Star-News in which the writer slammed the very first Doo Dah Parade as being an evil afront to all things conservative in Pasadena at the time.

And then today at City Hall, photographer Julie Klima, who happens to be the 2009 Doo Dah queen, took photos of a few of us at City Hall to be included in the exhibition.

Here's Tom Coston and Paddy Hurley of the Light Bringer Project reviewing some photos on Julie's camera:

And yours truly, the 2012 grand marshal:

I'll have more information about the exhibition in early August. It's going to be a blast!