The Rose Parade began at 8:00 am on January 1, 2019, in Pasadena, California. This iconic parade is a tradition for many Americans on each New Year’s morning. This year, our very own Mizzou SAIFD members were part of the 935 volunteer hands that put this momentous day together. Instructor Lesleighan Cravens along with students Kailey Brooks, Sabrina Morris, and Jessica Petree traveled to California to work for 4 days on the Fiesta Float’s design for the week leading up to the big event.
The float depicted the outdoor-centric community in Big Bear Valley, California. As pictured below, it involved a family of 9 feet bears enjoying a sunny California day while skiing, hiking, fishing, camping, and biking.
This was a very busy week for every volunteer involved, especially for our SAIFD members. Work every day was from 8am until at least 7pm if not later. On the final day before the parade and judging the work day went until 2:30am. Every single volunteer stayed until the last float was completed, working together as a community to put the parade together successfully.
For the Big Bear float, there were two teams: the plant-based material team and the floral team. The plant-based material team used items that were no longer living, including beans, coconut, bark, seeds, and more. Every single item decorating the float was plant-based, yet each small item comes together to create a huge work of art no longer resembling those plant pieces. Our Mizzou members were part of the floral team where they worked with all of the live material including a variety of florals meant to achieve a natural look of “growing in the wild”. Some varieties included orchids, lily’s, mums, alstroemeria, sunflowers, and forsythia.
They were tasked with designing the smaller “pieces” that would be placed in the overall design, such as garland that encircled the whole float and the bouquets that made up the California landscape. Overall the hard work of our Mizzou members and the rest of the volunteers paid off, as the Big Bear float won the Golden State Award, which is given to the most outstanding depiction of life in California. Even more so, it made the week of hard work all worth it to see the float role down Colorado Boulevard on New Year’s day, one huge floral masterpiece. This is what floral design is really all about, expanding our creativity to create joy and emotion.
I sat down with Sabrina Morris, who is also the club President, to talk about her experience and gain a little more insight on what this week was like. She was blown away with all the detail that went into creating the float. Every small piece was designed out, but those small details mattered. That attention to detail can be seen in the sign announcing the “Big Bear Rose Parade Association”, pictured, which has such crisp lines and striking color that it looks to be printed onto the sign.
Sabrina also remarked that patience and communication were necessary for all parties during the week. The head designer would communicate with the people under them, who would talk with volunteers, and it was difficult to maintain a shared vision through each level. However, our members rose to the challenge and used the skills gained in their past floral design classes to ultimately succeed. Overall, Sabrina said, “this was a very neat experience where we were able to work with well-known industry leaders while doing something different then the club has ever done before. I loved being able to work with different people and making connections with designers who we will be working with again at National Symposium.” She remarked that this experience is something she would be happy to participate in again. This was a fantastic opportunity for the University of Missouri SAIFD to show our talents in an environment that is so open and interested in student learning. If the Big Bear float is any indication, this learning experience was a success and a beautiful one at that.
-Karis Holm, Reporter
Mizzou SAIFD 