Taking Requests.

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM LITTLE HIBACHI!!

I don't know where the last few months of 2014 went, but they flew away before I even had a chance to say a proper goodbye.

My deep apologies for not posting anything since the beginning of November.  It's a double-edge sword because I like keeping my blog and all of its readers up-to-date on everything LH, but the fact that I was busy making some very special custom pieces was a lot of fun too and that's a lot of what kept me away. 

Let me catch you up...

One of my very good friends and biggest LH supporters, Ms. Dana Varon (http://www.livingdolldv.blogspot.com) asked me to make a custom piece for one of her best friend's birthdays.  She wanted this lyric from the popular Guns N' Roses song "Sweet Child O' Mine":

"She's got a smile that it seems to me reminds me of

childhood memories where everything was as

fresh as the bright blue sky"

 Here is the finished piece:

(Dana said her friend loved it and nearly cried when she opened it.) 

Notice anything different about this piece?  Introducing...GLITTER PAPER, my new favourite thing to put in my LH pieces!!  It gives just the right amount of depth and sparkle to certain pieces.  Side note:  When I worked at Buffalo Exchange in Tucson, AZ over ten years ago, one of my managers called me a raccoon because I loved any piece of jewelry we bought for the store that was big and sparkly : )

Next came another request for a custom piece for another dear friend (also named Dana.  I love my Dana's ;).  It was for her parents' wedding anniversary at the end of November.  They are both lovers of dogs (corgis) and they live in Las Vegas, so Dana wanted to incorporate the desert somehow.  This is the design I came up with:

 

And here it is finished:

(I used the tinfoil under glass stain effect for the 

blue sky and the pink of the dog's ears.) 

I went home to visit my family in Tucson for 8 days around Christmas.  While I was there I was able to see a number of good friends, one of them being a beautiful woman named Ariane (whom I will always know as "Allie" :)  She had asked me a while back to make her a custom piece with words from a poem I had written that will be included in my upcoming book.  It is a long poem, so I asked her to choose a few of her favourite lines and I would make something special for her.  These are the lines she chose:

"Somebody is dreaming of your touch.  

Somebody wants you to be happy.

Somebody smiles every time they think of you.

Somebody treasures your spirit.

Somebody needs to hear this from you."

Here is Allie's finished piece:

 (She loves it!)

Lastly, while I was away in Tucson, the first Dana I mentioned in this post was here in L.A. looking after my cats and facing the hardest decision of her life.  Her beloved dog Jelly, whom she had rescued over ten years ago was getting older and sicker by the day.  There is a bumper sticker I often see that perfectly sums up a relationship like Dana had with Jelly that has a paw print and simply says:  "Who rescued who?"

Yes, when Dana met Jelly he was close to death, having been tattooed (yes, tattooed) by his former owners and the hair on his hind legs was so long that they were basically tied together).  Dana nursed Jelly back to health and gave him the kind of life he could have only dreamed of.  

But Jelly rescued Dana too.  He had been with her through her mother's battle with and ultimate loss to lung cancer 7 years ago as well as escorted her on her cross-country move from New York City to Los Angeles in the middle of 2014.  He went with her everywhere and taught her all there is to know about true love, compassion, patience, and forgiveness.

Dana told me that any time she sees the letter "S" it reminds her of her mom because that is the first letter of her mother's name Shelly.  She says it is a sign to her that she is on the right path.  I was with Dana at the park with Jelly one afternoon and when we got up from the cement table we had been sitting talking at for hours we looked down and there was a gold "S" embedded in the cement.  It gave me delightful chills to be witness to her mother's energy still reaching out to her.

I wanted to make something special for Dana because even though I haven't even known her for a year, I have learned so much about her and her kind spirit.  I also wanted to thank her for taking care of my apartment and my cats while I was away, so the first thing I thought to make her was her own personal "S" LH piece that she could display in her new apartment, a reminder that she is on the right path and her mom is still with her.  The idea for the piece was mine, but the timing of the delivery of the gift can only be described as "Divine".  Here is the piece through various stages of my process:

Dana opened this gift December 24th right after having put her beloved Jelly to sleep that morning.  I would like to say I planned for this to happen, but how could I possibly have done that?  There was something larger at work that day because I believe this was her sign.  The sign that she had done the right thing for her and for Jelly.  It gives me more chills to think about, but it also is a sign to me as well, a sign that the work I am doing is more than just making pretty things.  It's reaching to the very heart of people and touching something only art can touch.  

I thank God for this gift and I thank all of you for continuing on this artful journey with me.

All the best to you in 2015.  Namaste.

<3,

LH