Pasadena Adjacent

Honoring Saint Patrick through the color green, a cheese teapot and violence. This is a green horn worm. It hurts tomatoes (violent content)

It also influenced the creation of my biomorphic sculpture placed into the above diorama; part Weegee, Black Dalia and Hillside Strangler. I used TomColeman“Green to Black” satin glaze.My experience was the opposite. Mostly black with a dab of green.

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Instructor Keiko trying to respond (in her adopted language) to a tennis shoe wearing wedge of cheese. A teapot that became a pirate after his eyeball fell off. (violent content)

Rocks and bottles: more specifically, river rocks and blue bottles.

I like the concept of asking the universe for what you want. But I usually just ask friends; they tend to be more reliable. To this end, I went forward with my heart’s desire to build a cord wood structure at the bottom of my hillside(think Grandma Prisby). Although I put out the call for blue bottles, the universe came up short. Compromised, I used the collected bottles in a wall I built with local river rock.

River rock collected from the lot above. The former site of The Virginian restaurant. I may never have dined in Virginia, but I do remember arriving at the nearby stables minutes after the owner’s sister jumped off the York Blvd Bridge. A memory that’s followed me symbolically in my paintings and now into my wall. I blame the event on menopause; an unkind condition that afflicts women.

Remember reading Highlights Magazine as a child? My favorite challenge was identifying the hidden objects in a Highlight illustration. Your assignment here in the “adjacents” is to name the past Trash Tuesday items appearing in my wee video production. The winner will receive a fabulous prize (if they get their ass over to that other blog)

dbdubya: thanks for the memories/recall

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A rose by any other name? doesn’t matter. Johnson/Johnston Lake is part of a gated community close(d) to you and me. That is unless you represent a Hollywood film production company. In that case, for a location fee you can change the lake’s name for the day, set up some chairs in front of it and “get real” with celebrities in recovery. I wish them well.

What’s that written at the bottom of the photo? “NEAR” Pasadena. That would put Mirror Lake’s location “IN” Garvanza. With that said, lets continue on with our Garvanza/Stairway tour of the Highlands.

From Beaudry/Mirror/Garvanza/Johnson/Johnston lake we make our way downstream to where San Rafael creek spills into the Arroyo. Further down the Arroyo is the smallSan Pascual auto bridge. Cross it and head west.

Off the avenue is a small dead end street named Hough. The starting point of another hidden stair way.This one is especially sweet with each riser decorated in tiles created by the children of nearby San Pascual elementary school. The hand painted tiles depict wildflowers and creatures representative of the Arroyo. Brilliant!

Having recovered after ascending the multiple flights of tiled deliciousness

You shall find yourself back atop the bluff of the Garvanza Highlands. An oak lined right of way leads to Ave 66. A street teeming with many gracious homes (in varying states of repair) that once represented Garvanza’s elite citizenry.Landmark #107, the McClure home.

select to enlarge

UPDATE: I think I’ve cracked the name game of the lake. First, it’s not a natural lake but a wetland area that was damned up for a lake. It’s true name should be Cambell-Johnston Lake with a “T” The problem being that Hiram T Reid who wrote the seminal 1895 book “History of Pasadena” dropped the T  thus rewriting history. It’s been a source of confusion since

source: Within the Vale of  Annandale Donald W. Crocker