News Release - The Huntington Announces Riders for 2020 Rose Parade® Float
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"Cultivating Curiosity" float in progress, 2019. Photo: Phoenix Decorating.
Artist's rendering of The Huntington's 2020 entry in the Rose Parade®, designed by Phoenix Decorating Company. The float celebrates The Huntington's 100th anniversary and is part of a yearlong Centennial Celebration running from Sept. 2019 through Sept. 2020.
The Huntington's float in the 1969 Rose Parade®, sponsored by the city of San Marino, Calif.
The Huntington's Chinese garden, named the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, Liu Fang Yuan, features a complex of tile-roofed pavilions situated around a large lake and showcases many plants native to China. Pictured: The Pavilion of the Three Friends. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
The centerpiece of The Huntington's historic Rose Garden is the 18th-century French stone tempietto encircling a sculpture titled Love, the Captive of Youth. Appropriately, the tempietto is surrounded by a bed of "Passionate Kisses" roses. Photo: Alexander Vertikoff. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Created in 1912, the Japanese Garden features a small lake spanned by a moon bridge, a traditional house, and trellises of wisteria that bloom in early spring. Photo: Martha Benedict. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Breakfast in Bed, 1897. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation.
Edward Hopper (1882-1967), The Long Leg, 1935. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation.
The Ellesmere Manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, circa 1410. Shown is the introduction to "The Knight's Tale." The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
A Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) dubbed "Scentennial," bloomed on July 24, 2019. Photo: Deborah Miller. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Posted on Thu., Dec. 5, 2019
Community Partners from the Pablove Foundation and the Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), Huntington Staff, and Teen Volunteers Join The Huntington's Centennial Celebration as Float Riders and Walkers
SAN MARINO, Calif. — The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens announced today that its "Cultivating Curiosity" float in the 2020 Rose Parade® will host eight riders and will be followed by six walkers as it makes the 5.5-mile journey down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena on New Year's Day. The float riders will include four youth participants from The Huntington's community partner programs with the Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA) and the Pablove Foundation; Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence; two lucky staff members who won a staff-wide raffle; and leadership donor and member of The Huntington's Board of Governors Mei-Lee Ney. The walkers following the float will include five of The Huntington's teen volunteers and one adult supervisor.
Throughout December, more than 900 volunteers from The Huntington’s community of members, volunteers, and donor and school groups will decorate the float depicting several iconic elements in The Huntington’s collections. Volunteers will use a variety of dried and fresh plant materials to bring the float to life. Cycad leaves sourced from regular pruning at The Huntington will be used to decorate the palm trees, while eight juvenile golden barrel cacti from The Huntington’s Desert Garden will be displayed throughout the float.
Taking place during its yearlong Centennial Celebration, the parade is an opportunity to highlight for a global audience The Huntington’s rare research materials, inspiring art collections, and unparalleled botanical gardens that have made it a beloved destination for 750,000 visitors each year.
About the Float Riders
Community Partners
Founded in 2008, the Pablove Foundation is a nationwide non-profit that teaches photography to children with cancer and funds innovative cancer research. Pablove Shutterbugs, the signature art-education program of the Pablove Foundation, teaches kids and teens living with cancer to develop their creative voice through the art of photography. Students learn from caring professionals who help spark their creativity and foster a sense of discovery and accomplishment. The program is open to patients ages 6-18 years old who are currently living with cancer or have completed treatment. Since 2017, The Huntington has hosted Pablove Shutterbugs courses, in which the botanical gardens and art collections serve as inspiration for the participants’ exploration of photography. The Huntington also hosts the end-of-program celebration with parents and children, where the participant's photographs are displayed in the Mapel Orientation Gallery at The Huntington. The Pablove float riders are (age 13, Glendale, California) and (age 15, Inglewood, California).
Heart of Los Angeles(HOLA) provides underserved youth with free programs in academics, arts, and athletics in a nurturing environment. HOLA’s success is founded on safe environments, nurtured by a “no-wrong-door” approach, amplified by world-renowned partners, and perpetuated by students who become productive, caring, and responsible citizens. HOLA’s staff have attended pedagogical leadership retreats at The Huntington, which are an ongoing part of their Saturday Museum Club curriculum and include arts-based workshops inspired by The Huntington’s collections. In partnership with HOLA’s Visual Arts Department, The Huntington will serve as inspiration for HOLA’s 2020 student art show, which focuses on botanical themes. The HOLA riders are Nana Ama Ampofo (age 17, downtown Los Angeles) and Giovanni Tellez (age 17, downtown Los Angeles).
Karen R. Lawrence, President, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Karen R. Lawrence is the ninth president of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Before joining The Huntington in September 2018, she served for a decade as president at Sarah Lawrence College, a small, highly regarded liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. “The Huntington’s incomparable collections have had an extensive reach over the past century, and we expect them to continue to inspire visitors, new and old, for the next 100 years in powerful and unpredictable ways,” said Lawrence. “We welcome the national and international exposure that this celebrated parade provides and look forward to this joyful moment during our Centennial as a way of sharing our treasures with audiences the world over.”
Javier Vasquez, Huntington Staff Raffle Winner
Javier Vasquez has worked at The Huntington for 11 years and is currently a special events custodian. His father worked as a gardener at The Huntington for 40 years. “I love The Huntington. With all the different plants and gardens from all over the globe, you can travel the world in one day instead of 80,” said Vasquez.
Alfred Torres, Huntington Staff Raffle Winner
Alfred Torres joined The Huntington in March 2019 as a security officer. “Earlier this year, when I moved to Los Angeles from Connecticut and joined The Huntington, I felt excited and grateful to be a part of an amazing institution. Upon learning that I would be a rider on the Rose Parade float, I had similar feelings: happy and grateful to be a part of The Huntington,” said Torres.
Mei-Lee Ney, Board of Governors, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Mei-Lee Ney was born in Shanghai and came to the United States when she was two years old. She is president of Richard Ney & Associates Asset Management, Inc., Pasadena, a member of The Huntington’s Board of Governors, a leadership donor for The Huntington’s Chinese Garden, and a major supporter of the parade float. She also is active in a range of non-profit organizations in Southern California, including Caltech Associates, Huntington Hospital, L.A. Opera, the Music Center, the Pasadena Educational Foundation, Pasadena Heritage, the Pasadena Senior Center, and the University of Southern California. Her additional community service includes serving as director on the board of the Valley Hunt Club, Pasadena, and as past president of the Town Club, Pasadena.
About the Float Walkers
Of The Huntington’s 1,200 dedicated volunteers, 100 are teenagers. The students work weekly two-hour shifts in the gardens and galleries to learn about the collections as they work and interface with visitors. Teen Volunteers wrote letters to nominate themselves to walk alongside The Huntington’s float. The Teen Volunteer float walkers are: Max Liu, Oak Avenue Intermediate School, Temple City, CA, Class of 2020 Ella Minton, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, La Canada Flintridge, CA, Class of 2022 Claudio Reynoso, Marshall Fundamental School, Pasadena, CA, Class of 2020 Ava Slocum, San Marino High School, San Marino, CA, Class of 2020 Cameron Yu, Temple City High School, Temple City, CA, Class of 2023 Jenny Long, The Huntington’s volunteer programs coordinator
The Huntington's Centennial Celebration
(September 2019–September 2020)
For the past 100 years, The Huntington has examined the human experience through the lens of its incomparable library, art, and botanical collections. Marking its Centennial with a yearlong series of exhibitions and events, The Huntington celebrates the impact of its collections and the connections they offer, while exploring the interdisciplinary ideas that will shape the next 100 years.
Follow the Centennial on social media - #100atTheH
About The Huntington
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens is a collections-based research and educational institution serving scholars and the general public. More information about The Huntington can be found online at huntington.org
Visitor Information
The Huntington is located at 1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino, Calif., 12 miles from downtown Los Angeles. It is open to the public Wednesday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Tuesdays. Information: 626-405-2100 or huntington.org.
About the Pasadena Tournament of Roses®
The Tournament of Roses is a volunteer organization that hosts America’s New Year Celebration® with the Rose Parade® presented by Honda, the Rose Bowl Game® presented by Northwestern Mutual and a variety of accompanying events. Nine hundred thirty-five volunteer members of the association will drive the success of 131st Rose Parade themed “The Power of Hope,” on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020, followed by the 106th Rose Bowl Game. For more information, visit www.tournamentofroses.com. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
