If you’re any bit a pop culture enthusiast, you’ve probably dreamed of attending the Golden Globes—donning your finest, rubbing elbows with celebrities, tearing up during award speeches and simply enjoying the spectacle.
For local artist Douglas Heifetz, that dream is all but reality. Though he won’t attend this weekend’s awards himself, he’ll be present in the next-best place: the Golden Globe gift bag.
Heifetz is a silversmith and founder of craft company Lost and Forged, which creates jewelry, housewares and more out of vintage materials, particularly flatware. He connected with the Golden Globes through The Artisan Group, a Hollywood-based collection of artisans whose handcrafted work is shown and sampled at high-profile events.
“This is my first big event,” he says. “Each gift bag will include a vintage silver whole-spoon ring—essentially, a little demitasse spoon that I’ve forged into a ring.”
In addition to the gifts, he’ll also be exhibiting a few other items: a sterling silver Apple Watch band made from dinner forks, another unique ring and a pendant, each made from demitasse spoons as well.
A huge celebrity and pop culture fan, Heifetz was thrilled to hear his work would soon be in the hands of his favorite stars (including Game of Thrones’ Lena Headey and Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk). But even more than that, he expressed excitement for the promotion of handcrafted work as a whole.
“I want to get handmade artisanship more embedded in the culture at large,” he says, “to raise awareness of handmade products and crafts with Hollywood celebrities and the people who follow them and, in my case, to raise awareness of eco-fashion and sustainable gifts made from recycled materials.”
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Heifetz’s high-profile opportunity, however, is the relative newness of his business.
“A year and a half ago, I was looking for something to do with my hands (mainly while watching TV at night), and I started bending silverware. I became enamored with the process and sort of fell down a rabbit hole—I eventually took a jewelry class and, when the people in the class were asking where to buy what I was making, I decided to start a business.”
He soon won the emerging artists award for jewelry from Artscape, and the rest is history. In fact, he’ll soon leave his day job as rabbi of Reconstructionist Synagogue Oseh Shalom to pursue Lost & Forged and another of his projects, Mosaic Verse, full-time.
“I love it,” he says. “People’s enthusiasm [for my work] has been incredible. The more chances I have to work on it, the better.”
The Golden Globes will be broadcast at 5 p.m. on Sunday, January 8th.
To learn more about Lost and Forged, visit the website or follow along on Instagram.
Thanks for the nice article!
The main photo was taken by photographer Samia Jrab, with model Andrea Ventura.