Drawn Together

Saturday night we journeyed over to the hillside of Silver Lake to the home of our friends Peleg and Ricky. I first met Peleg ages ago when we worked together to found the Los Angeles chapter of the Graphic Artists Guild.

We were greeted at their home by the scent of Nag Champa incense burning in the living room. After hugs, kisses and the presentation of gifts we drifted to the kitchen where Ricky made all of us delicious Basil Lime martinis from a blend created by Peleg.

Nag Champa, Lime, Basil, tendrils of smoke from the lighting of the tea candles on the dinner table...a perfume was formulating in my head, I can't help it, smells do that to me.

The meal was a series of small dishes beginning with a very fresh arugula salad that featured watermelon, followed by a caprese salad and cumin spiced stuffed zucchini. (Cumin..another addition to the perfume being orchestrated in my minds eye.) We had brought over an infused olive oil balsamic dipping oil from our local farmers market that worked perfectly with the caprese and fresh bread.


Conversation was just as delicious as the meal, as we shared favorite books, films, stories of anal retentive dish loading tendencies and our favorite places to purchase food. After the absolute perfect apple tart with port we moved to the living room for more sharing.

When I first met Peleg he had a graphic design studio in Van Nuys, we hit it off together immediately, a creative soul entanglement. Since then he has graduated from cooking school, organized graphic design conferences, and is now a coach and mentor to creative entrepreneurs and more. He even documented the cooking school experience which you can read on his blog.

His favorite illumuniated perfumes include Q and now GreenWitch, which he chose as a solid. I'm going to make it for him in a bigger container, a la body balm, stay tuned. Meanwhile, Ricky liked the warmer Aumbre over Pelegs preference of the fresh, crisp notes of GreenWitch.

Just before departing to our own nest in the woods, Peleg gave us a tour of his art studio where he has embraced his inner artist and is cranking out large acrylic paintings and pastel drawings in gorgeous moleskin books. He asked me, "Aren't you painting anymore, don't you miss it?" Although I'm not painting anymore I am creating and expressing myself daily, just in other mediums. His question combined with my newly cleaned off drawing table inspired me. Yesterday I did a simple, pencil line drawing and will start doing them daily. Today I am working on one called Hedera helix. Yesterdays image is a remake of one from a few years ago which I felt needed a little fine tuning and am visualizing as an animation, I'm calling it Drawn Together.

My friend Aztechan asked "Did the inspiration stem from (A) an amazing meal (B) Martinis (C) Peleg Top (D) All of the above?" My answer "A synergistic affect." Last week when Alyssa, the film maker, was at the house I had cleared off my drafting table from perfume formulas and rapidly reproducing amber glass bottles with chords, essential oils, perfumes in the works etc. The cleared space made me comtemplate drawing again. Thus, triggered by Peleg's question, I choose to hold off on some perfume and marketing work to just draw for the sake of drawing.