Date/Time
Date(s) - 01/17/2026
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Location
Pasadena Heritage Blinn House
Category(ies)
Batchelder Nature in Relief series (Photo – Pasadena Heritage)
Dream new ornamental worlds while exploring Pasadena Heritage archives. On Saturday, January 17, 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm, artist and community facilitator @_shagho (she/her) leads a hands-on dive into the motifs and movement of birds as found in Batchelder’s tiles and the natural world.
This is the second of three workshops exploring Ernest Batchelder’s ornamental legacy through nature’s hidden patterns. Tickets are available on Eventbrite for $39.19.
Starting with a brief discussion and field inspiration on local bird species with a guest from the Pasadena Audubon Society, participants will translate shapes, gestures, and textures into their own relief and surface designs using clay and found materials.
Expect sketching, pattern exploration, and creative experiments that guide from observation to crafted motifs rooted in ornithological forms, culminating in a collaborative artistic project.
Eucalyptus seed pods crack into star forms, California live oak acorns nest in textured caps, and Anna’s hummingbird throats flash ruby coin-sized patches. These patterns wait for hands and found materials to bring them into new forms.
Working with local museums and heritage sites, participants will translate nature’s geometries into relief and surface design, encoding collective wishes about a more harmonious, abundant world. Each repeated motif becomes anticipatory consciousness—active projections reshaping reality through patient ornamental work.
This series of events is hosted to bring the community together to help Pasadena History Museum in compiling a registry of Batchelder tile installations throughout the United States and Canada, asking for assistance from the public to document for the first time the scope of the business and distribution of the tiles throughout North America.
Other Pasadena Heritage events can be explored at pasadenaheritage.org/events-tours.
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