Mimi Zeiger

Critic, editor, curator and instigator.

The Bolton/Culbertson House in Pasadena wears its more than 100-year history well. Located on West Del Mar Boulevard, just off of Millionaires Row, the stately Craftsman bungalow appears seems to defy time. A herringbone brick path cuts through a trim lawn to a welcoming porch. A wide cedar door, detailed with teak insets and a stained glass window by former Tiffany Studios artisan Emil Lange, seems ready to yawn open and embrace visitors. Arcing boughs of blue cedars complete the Arts and Crafts composition. Read More …

On a hot October evening I stood on the front walk of Greene and Greene’s Gamble House in Pasadena and watched a puppet crane poke his beak through the center of what can only be described as an Arts and Crafts vortex. A nearly 30-foot-wide sculpture hung from the street façade, patterned in a hallucinogenic, Morris-style rose motif. The crane and rose are, of course, the Gamble family crest. Its author, artist Patrick Ballard, calls it The Swirling Mess Below the Sleeping Porch Soon Solidified into a Crest of Phantasmagoric Weight that Creaks Between the Doors, the Floors, and a Form that Could Never Be a House Again. Read More …