Iron Giant

Sometimes finding art means you have to get lost first. “I’m on my way to Burbank Airport,” says Patrick Guilfoyle, co-owner of Double Dog Dare Ya, a pet boarding facility in Burbank, “and somehow I’ve missed the street. Just as I’m thinking, ‘Where the hell am I?’ I see an ironwork studio.”

So Guilfoyle did what any of us with an unrealized dream of a funny little dog gate would do: He met the artist in the alley. “As soon as I walked inside the studio, I knew this was meant to be,” says Guilfoyle, who had already drawn up designs for three dog-bone gates, two of which sport a dog looking for its ball while a cat observes from above.

Creative Metal Design’s owner, Joseph Grigorian, worked for the shah of Iran before coming to the United States 21 years ago. “I work from my heart,” he says of his one-of-a-kind iron pieces. “A woman tells me her life and I create a railing that tells her story. I listen to classical music and it talks to me. All this is inspiration for my work.”