What do you want your life to smell like
[Music]
what did ancient egypt smell like
when denver art museum asked me to
create a presentation for their king tut
exhibit
this was my first question not great as
you can imagine
people in the ancient world lived with
their animals
had no running water and no bathrooms
so when they came across something that
smelled good they thought it was sent by
god
in fact they thought it was god
it’s with the egyptians that western
history begins and the historical use of
fragrance starts with them
they created sacred scents anointing
oils and incense made of resins
spices herbs dried fruit
wine and animal fats to send messages
and prayers to the gods
perfume or perfume literally means
through smoke
at first these scents were only to be
handled by the priests and priestesses
but eventually fragrance became so
important in their culture
that scent was used in everyday life by
everyone
even the enslaved in fact the first
slave revolt happened
when there was a perfume shortage and
they weren’t given their quota
for the ancient egyptians having a scent
was synonymous with having a soul
essentially if you had no scent you
weren’t truly alive
we still embraced these ideas today with
the notion of a signature sent as our
invisible calling card
our sense of smell affects nearly every
part of our lives
with every breath every movement we are
taking in the world
smelling it and communicating something
back
smell is the only sense that bypasses
your brain’s filtering system
with vision for example your eyes take
in way more information than you
consciously see
you don’t see anything that your brain
finds unimportant
in this way your brain filters vision
hearing your
sense of taste and touch but smell is
different you are already experiencing
the effects of scent before your
conscious mind even realizes it
we’ve all had the experience of walking
down the street only to encounter a
smell that
transports us through time and space to
a long forgotten memory
the smell of your dad’s jacket when you
were six or that first whiff of green
grass on field day in elementary school
this is the power of scent
but now here’s where it gets a lot more
interesting
aside from putting on deodorant in the
morning or lighting a candle to enhance
the smell in your house
most of these experiences happen
accidentally
so what if we were more intentional with
our use of scent
we could shift our mood in an instant we
could slip into a new identity
a better version of ourselves we could
trigger
old memories on purpose
i’ve been making multi-sensory art for
nearly 30 years
and like so many things in life i didn’t
set out to work with fragrance
i didn’t even know it was a job i was in
art school
studying to be a painter when i started
learning about herbs and aromatherapy
in the hope that it would help me better
handle my asthma
this led me down a winding path to a
small perfumery in boston that made
all custom-made fragrances of course as
a student i needed a job
so i applied with no experience and
no training i showed up on my first day
to see what i could do
and it was a sink or swim moment i swam
through this first job i realized a few
things that would change my work and
life trajectory forever
one i love scent
smelling is an incredible source of
pleasure
two perfumery is an endless art form
you can never exhaust your imagination
there are always new materials being
produced to
combine in novel ways to make your art
and tell your stories through
three i’m synesthetic which means that i
smell in color
texture line and shape for me every
aroma has a unique visual quality
attached to it
cold pressed lime oil smells like a
cubist painting
with stripes of lime green dark green
black and silver
coming out at you at sharp angles
oris root smells like buttered carrots
with violets and dark chocolate but it
looks like a light periwinkle gauze
made of the thinnest strands of silk and
cashmere floating in the sky
it’s this last bit that’s been the
foundation of my work as an artist
i confuse visual design elements with
scent impressions to make my work
and this art form has brought me to all
kinds of places like
art galleries and museums to make
installations and presentations but
some of my favorite work has been made
with individuals
people telling me their life story to be
translated into scent
like bottled biographies that you can
uncork any time and
even share with others people tell me of
their closest
relationships of the things and people
and places that they love
together we smell materials as we
decipher their story and
find the aromas to bring it to life some
of my work is autobiographical
when i was four years old i spent my
first night away from my parents
it was preschool summer camp and as a
finale to the experience we had a
camping trip
we all spent the night outside in a pine
grove under the open night sky
i didn’t sleep at all that night because
i couldn’t stop listening to the trees
whispering to one another above my head
i’ll never forget the magic in that
night
and infused in my memory as the smell of
sweet pine sap
cool night air and the ancient aroma of
woods mixed with
earth decades later in my studio i would
have to find just the right pine and fur
and frankincense oils to replicate the
sweet sap aroma
and mix it with warm cedar lab denim
resin
and sandalwood to give the feeling of
the grove
but it’s the top note of green leaf
alcohol that gives the essence of cool
night air
i call this perfume the voices of trees
another favorite is called august picnic
when i was a kid my family would get
together for summer picnics at my
grandfather’s farmhouse and we’d all go
swimming in the pond
in my memory there was always a rhubarb
pie or
fresh rhubarb to eat with sugar this
perfume
august picnic 1976 tells the story of
those
humid summer days filled with tall grass
the cedar cabin and rhubarb
but it’s the sweet sugar note in the
background that tells of our bond
the sweetness of playing with my cousins
and feeling connected to the older
generation
we know people by the way that they
smell whether they’re wearing perfume or
not we know if they smoke a pipe or
drink coffee or love to garden by the
way that they smell
and unconsciously we all want to be
known
for our scent to be remembered
one day a woman contacted me to ask if i
was familiar with a particular iris
perfume from the 1940s
of course i was i’ve been collecting
perfume since i was a kid
among perfume lovers this scent is both
famous and rare
she said she got a sample from a perfume
collector and had
fallen in love with it it made her feel
even more like herself
but it was even more than that faced
with another round of chemo
she needed this perfume to be her
scented shield a kind of lucky charm
a scented talisman to ward off danger
and give her strength
i smelled the perfume on her skin and
matched it in the bottle using tiny
precise amounts of
materials together we created the scent
of hope
a direct reformulation of the original
that
got her through her chemo it still
brings her joy
and brings beauty to those who wear it
we can all bring this power into our
lives
by deciding what we want our world to
smell like
we can transform it modern life is
filled with overwhelm and anxiety but
like the ancient egyptians we can become
the architects of our own scentscapes by
consciously doing
what we’re already doing breathing
and smelling we can all take a moment
each day to ask ourselves
what do i want to feel like what do i
need
pay attention to the smells that give
you pleasure
make you feel peaceful or even strong
and powerful and give yourself
more of them this most ancient sense is
the doorway to our deepest selves
the key to our joy self-expression
peace and empowerment use it
intentionally and you’ll find
that scent is deeply life-affirming
thank you