Behind Sierra Madre’s $50k Rose Float

The swift approach of New Year's Day has kicked the Sierra Madre Rose Float Association’s creativity and staggering work ethic into high gear as they work on “Colorful Imagination,” Sierra Madre’s float for the Rose Parade.

At the helm of the float construction are Dick and Kay Sappington, veritable superheroes of the decorative arts world, along with other Rose Float Association leaders and a closely-knit group of volunteers.

The husband-wife team has been delighting audiences and inspiring volunteers all over the region for the past sixteen years as float designers, builders and consultants. This is the eighth float they’ve been in charge of in Sierra Madre.

"The float itself is two children playing with paint, imagining the beautiful butterflies they will create," said Kay, who serves as Decoration Director.

The float was designed by artist Julio Leon, whose concept was selected from about thirty finalist submissions.

The two children are a boy and girl, both several feet in height. The girl will end up near the front of the float with a "magic hula hoop," while the boy will be poised almost 30 feet off the ground and rotate 180 degrees as he brandishes a paintbrush swimming in color. The kids will be encircled by a gang of 10-foot-tall butterflies with flapping wings.

See photos of the float in our gallery above

When it’s completed, "Colorful Imagination" will have cost around $50,000, significantly less than projects from other cities that do not receive or attract the same degree of volunteer labor and financial support in the form of donations, according to Kay.

Half of the budget goes to flowers and decoration, with the other half covering the actual float construction and various odds and ends.

Sierra Madre is one of only two cities whose contributions to the Rose Parade are funded and executed via an all-donation, volunteer-only process.

"Downey has a population of 100,000 and Sierra Madre has 11,000, so there is a disparity there," said Kay. "We are the smallest builder."

In this way the Sierra Madre Rose Float Association stands for and proudly exhibits an almost ironic strength in (small) numbers.  Outside the core group of about eight that do the building, the Association has received the help of roughly 100 volunteers this year.

The Sappingtons found themselves in the float-designing world by accident and seemingly by fate nearly sixteen years ago, after a phone call from a curious brother-in-law. 

"We started at South Pasadena about 15 years ago... when they needed my husband's expertise to carve nine two-foot-tall children's heads,” said Kay. Dick is a veteran ceramic model maker by trade who works mainly on research and development on various products from aircraft parts to toilets.

That project spawned a three-year career in South Pasadena, and led to a subsequent two-year stint helping with mechanical engineering on floats in Burbank. 

The Sappingtons ended up consulting in Sierra Madre for the first time in 2001.

“Colorful Imagination” is just weeks away from completion. During these final weeks of restless nights and dedicated days, it is especially clear that float building is more than a hobby for the Sappingtons. It encompasses nearly every hour of every day, and is a proud labor of love.