Guest blogger: Lou-lou

I am really interested in the way smells can evoke memories. The first book I read about smells and memory was 'Swann's Way' by Marcel Proust, where the scent of a Madelaine cake reminds him beautifully of his early days.

Last year I was doing a research project on this topic and luckily many olfactory artists were happy to share their experiments with me. Maki Ueda, www.ueda.nl was one of them.

She extracts odours from all sorts of natural ingredients for exhibitions and her artistic practice, and runs workshps of perfume making.

We talked about her exhibition of memory evoking smells that was on in the Netherlands. This aromatic journey was all about Maki's memory of Japan, with odours of miso soup, cherry blossoms, and cedarwood. Each of these bottles contains some of these scents/memories.

I guess we all have some similar experience with our unique olfactory senses. What are your scent memories?

Images: Madelaine cake www.kirbiecravings.com, other images Maki Ueda.

Inspiration no. 1

PERFUME BOTTLES

I received a comment from a French reader of my blog, asking me what my inspirations are, and I thought it would be nice to do some blogs on a lot of things that inspire me and that I love.

So my first blog on this is on scent bottles. I love scent bottles, the mystique and art of the perfume world, and these images crop up in my paintings repeatedly (above is the anzu perfume card).

image courtesy of flickr

I love Lalique crystal, classically simple Chanel, innovative Schiaperelli, and elegant Guerlain bottles. Guerlain have always produced decorative, indulgent and distinctive bottles and I was delighted when they and Aqua di Parma asked me to do this illustration for them, which they later used for their invitations (see below).

I also like going to Les Senteurs in Elizabeth Street, London, which has a great selection of scent and reading books on perfume. Reading I would especially recommend are 'Alchemy' by Mandy Aftel, recommended to me by a perfumier, 'Perfume bottles' by Judith Miller, the scent chapter in Diane Ackermann's excellent 'A natural history of the senses', and the blog boisdejasmin.typepad.com