Last week I had an afternoon to head down to Denver for an "artist's date". Even though the new Hamilton building (part of the Denver Art Museum), designed by Daniel Libeskind, has gotten a tremendous amount of international attention and acclaim, I find it annoying. The outside is amazing, as you can see from the above NY Times photo. I just couldn't capture it with my camera so decided to conveniently (thank you world wide web) use someone else's. The interior is cold and gloomy. The galleries are all at such odd angles, it's hard to view the art that is there. And where is all the art? One of the reasons for the new building was to be able to have more space for the both the permanent collection and traveling exhibits. Where's the art? That's all I can think about every time I enter this building. Off my soap box now, thank you very much.
I do love this giant monolithic sculpture that graces the entrance to the new building with the lovely Michael Graves public library in the background. Don't know the name of this sculpture or what it's made of. I just know I like it's majesty and gentle stoney curves. What else is there really that one needs to know about a piece of art? It speaks to you or it doesn't. I'm reminded of a part of the Mary Oliver poem, "Wild Geese",
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred milles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
So often I feel this pressure going to an art museum that I have to know something and be smart about the art I'm seeing. When really all I want to do is just look and be inspired or not. Love what it loves.
Myself and I vectored first to the "old" Denver Art Museum to see the Gee's Bend quilts. They have come to town along with a play of the same name that Stephanie and Lisa and I saw a couple of weeks ago. The one act (4 actor) play was amazing. The quilt makers came alive for us and the set, while small, included a small "creek" with real water.
This is the 2nd second major exhibition of the quilts and they are in Denver until July 6. I have loved these since I first read about them in the 90's. But this was my first up close viewing.
What I loved about them was how organic they are. Certainly they've been designed and thought out, some more than others, but there is this immediacy about them that speaks to me. Not over planned. They were made from what we in 2008 would call "recycled" materials. But really these quilters just used whatever was at hand. Out of necessity. They aren't perfectly square and perfectly executed. And to me that's what makes them so wonderful. Beautiful and imperfect.
I especially loved the older ones from the 40's, 50's and 60's. All the tiny stitching and the wear and tear. They are literally the fabric of someone's life. They sheltered dreams and love making and snuggling and tears. Very touching and real. The art of life. If they come your way, make time for them. I think you'll find them very inspiring. Read more about the quilts of Gee's Bend here.
The second stop on my Denver field trip was the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art. My other Front Range compadres have covered this on their blogs, but I wanted to add my 2 cents. See Lisa Hoffman's much more thorough debriefing of DMOCA here. I loved this outstanding sculptural piece that graces this very contemporary building. Unlike the Hamilton building, I found this contemporary building inviting and interesting. A good home and holding container for a variety of contemporary art.
But I have to say my favorite part of the building was, of course, the cafe. I stopped for a cup of tea and had a chance to read the loose binder describing the building and it's contents. They also have a cool iPod tour, which I saw someone else with, but did not try. Next time.
I liked the inside and outside of the cafe. A quiet space perched on top of the building.
For the time being, you have a spectacular view of lower downtown Denver. Soon tall buildings will block the view, but on the day of my excursion I was able to enjoy my Earl Grey with an unobstructed view.
Where have you been lately?
Ok, Ok Mary Ann Moss gets 1st prize for best field trip EVER! Go here to have a look.
I've been in a music rut lately. Maybe it's the turn of the season or I'm just outgrowing my Chill genre phase, but these 3 new CD's are getting my groove on. I've never liked Sheryl Crow, too pop for my taste. But I have to say this new one is just political enough and deep enough to hold my attention. Love the upbeat message and melodies in "Out of Our Heads." "God Bless This Mess" is a plea and a mantra we should all be chanting every single day.
Do you Weepie? I love this duo. Think Juno soundtrack, only better. Mellow vibe, lilting melodies and thoughtful lyrics. Just right.
Remember "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys?" God, I loved that album. Almost wore it out. So cool. Well Steve Winwood (no longer "Stevie") is back and doing his own thing. Great guitar playing and mature in a good way. Like Joni Mitchell. Walking thier paths and evolving as artists, and sharing the journey with us.
As you may already know, in February the Polaroid company announced it was closing it's factories and that Polaroid film was going the way of the dial telephone. Good bye old friend. Many a 70's memory we had together. Drunken moments memorialized. Uncle Dougie's hula skirt incident. Art projects galore.
But here is the BIG news - the next gen instant printer for our digital age, will make it's debut this fall. Just in time for the holidays and before the next journaling retreat! Imagine the possibilities! The picture above shows this neat and tiny (the size of credit card) printer that can hook-up wirelessly to your phone (Bluetooth), or with a cable to your digital camera. It opens like a compact to reveal a computer chip, a 2-inch long thermal printhead and a new kind paper embedded with microscopic layers of dye crystals that create a multitude of colors when heated. Cool, huh?
It comes with a rechargeable lithium ion battery that will last for about 15 shots (recharge time?) and the paper (2" X 3") won't be quite as expensive as the old Polaroid film - about 33 to 40 cents a sheet as opposed to a dollar for the old film. The prints will be borderless with a semigloss finish - and the BEST PART FOR JOURNALERS - they come with an adhesive backing that can be peeled off for instant stick! Whoa! This is so cool, I can hardly stand it. I read the expected retail price will be about $150. They know they are competing with on-line viewing of digital images and want to entice people away from virtual reality back to old school, everyday 3-D reality. Which is fine by me. I love this reality and the feel of the moment before caught in a photo, in my hot little hands. Or stuck to a journal page. Instant gratification. The old fashioned way.
My 15 year old daughter started driving about a month ago. Well, actually it was 3 weeks ago when she first went out around our neighborhood with her dad. On a recent weekend she did two 8 hour days of Master Drive – more later – and she is now basically street ready. The only problem is, I’m not. It is hard to describe the feelings I am having of seeing my child driving my car. I don’t know if it’s because my father died in a car accident when I was seven (ya think!), or if I’m really as controlling as my youngest brother accuses me of being, but this is difficult for me. I realize it’s just another letting go. And there have been many letting go moments along this path with my daughter. Preschool. The first time at the swimming pool when she was 4 and I gave her a dollar to walk all the way across the pool grounds to get an ice cream – all-by-herself. Kindergarten. Grade school trips to the mountains with her class. Without me. An eighth grade trip to France. Without me. This is just another kind of letting go. No one told me that teenage parenting was going to be so hard in this way. The first time she sat in the driver’s seat, behind the wheel of my car, we had a seismic power shift. She had just completed 16 hours (2 days) of the Master Drive driving range course. She could brake and turn (at the same time), slalom the cones without hitting even one and maneuver in and out of parking spots. She was on the skid pad that simulated sheet ice and can keep control of the car and steer it to safety. I am more than impressed. I just sat there looking at her and she was like one of those shiny hologram images that switch from eagle to lion - toddler/beautiful 15 year old, toddler/responsible young woman, toddler/full grown woman. It was just the most amazing moment for me. We have moved into a new universe. And while I don’t know a lot about what lies ahead, I do know one thing. She’ll be driving my car (physically, not metaphorically). And I’m just going to have to be chill about it and let go. One more time.
If any of you live in California or Colorado and have teens about to drive, I highly and wholeheartedly recommend the Master Driver program. Find out more here.
I've been busy as of late, in spare moments, between driving gigs, getting ready for the Longmont Studio Tour. I was recently juried into the tour and even though it isn't until September, I feel like I need to get a jump on it. My ankle biters (aka children - 10 and 15) take up a lot of my summer.
Here is a little stack of beauties that have kept my fingers busy and sore. I'll do the big reveal right before the studio tour, so you'll have to wait in suspense until then to see what they are.
This pic from my studio reminds me to get busy. I made a to-do list in my journal and have copied and posted it here as a visual reminder. I'll be selling a variety of things: some journal/paper stuff, bead stuff and fiber stuff. Tick. Tock. For such a right brained person, I need a fair amount of structure to keep me from skipping the rails off into never-never land.
Here's a nice detail.
I love this amazing button and the way the colors play together.
You may have seen this little gem of a cool thang hanging out in the first picture above. I scored it recently on sale at Anthropologie. I'm seeing a little theater scene with multiple layers and a couple of fiber figures hanging out in there. Hmmmm. How long til school's out?
I love this plant. It's a hardy soul. I bought it in a 3" pot when we first moved in about 9 years ago and despite frigid cold and searing heat, it's thriving. It blooms early and then dies back. But it's tender pink hearts inspire me.
How can a little flower be so perfect? It's little cluster of cousins all hang together, yet each one so individual.
Here's how my journal page turned out that I started last week. Very dream like. The word "counselors" popped out at me as I was sorting through journal fodder for finishing up. I liked the feeling the word gave to the page. So I slapped it down. I think I'd like these beings as my counselors. I feel as if maybe I have counselors swirling about me - maybe this is just one incarnation. They've been talking to me.
Last Friday I went with two friends to celebrate my belated December birthday. We lunched and then headed over to Parfum des Beaux Arts, which is so simply stated on this ordinary door. But when I walked through this unassuming door, the world shifted slightly and I was in a wonderland of scent, fragrance and beauty.
I hatched this birthday plan with my friend Lisa Hoffman when she and I went to hear the proprietor (goddess) of Parfum des Beaux Arts, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, speak about historical perfumes in conjunction with the Denver Art Museum exhibit, “Artisans and Kings: Selected Treasures from the Louvre”. While the exhibit was a total snoozer, the lecture by Dawn was very inspiring and opened my eyes, and my nose, to the (for me) unexplored land of perfume scents. Lisa also helped with this. She’s been mentioning perfumes to me for years and it wasn’t sinking in until I heard Dawn speak. I’m not a perfume girl, preferring a mostly uncommercially scented life – fresh air, the smell of rain, my garden in the morning, my son's hair after he's played outside on a hot summer's day, garlic sauteing in hot olive oil, a waft of rosemary just after the knife slices through it – scents of everyday life, but not perfume. But Lisa was brought up in a house full of wonderfully eccentric women who all loved perfumes and followed the perfume world – early “perfumistas” (there really is such a thing). Lisa always smells wonderful and she can tell you not only what she’s wearing, but which perfume house it comes from, some history about the perfume and the next up and comer in the perfume world. It’s fascinating to me. At Dawn’s lecture we learned that she hand crafts personal artisanal scents. I was completely intrigued with the idea that I could go to her studio and that she could make a scent that was just for me. So with Lisa by my side, being a great friend and photographer for the day, we knocked on Dawn’s unassuming door and a whole new world opened up.
Dawn has a small warehouse space she works out of. The front room being office/packing and shipping and a small corner for her retail line where she sells a wide variety of her personal perfume collections and fragrances.
It's in the back corner of the warehouse that the magic really happens – in the blending room - her studio. Every single bottle you see in this photograph represents a different scent. There are many “notes” within this amazing symphony of smells. They have names like, Amber, Buddahwood, Opium, Tunisian Myrrh, Fir Needle, Ivy, French Lavendar. My brain was going crazy just walking into this olfactory wonderland. I wondered how in the world she was going to be able to sort it all out and figure out what scent was right for me.
We learned that Dawn was born with an acute sense of smell (that's an understatement) and she has honed that skill over the years. She began her life as a perfumer apprenticing at an old-fashioned perfumerie in Boston where fragrances were made my hand. "She had to memorize the hundreds of aromatics that are used to make perfumes - florals, animal scents, resins, spices, woods, leafy smells, oceanic scents. To succeed in perfume making, she had to not only be able to distinguish each scent and remember it, but she needed to be able to understand how they would smell when blended together in diferent combinations. She wrote down her observations about smells, keeping a sort of journal of her aromatic experiences, a process she recommends for people interested in making perfume. "It's like learning a language," she says. "You need a vocabulary. You need to be able to make poetry out of smells." *
As we began, I told her a few of the perfumes that I occasionally wear, Angel by Thierry Mugler and Flower Bomb by Viktor and Rolf and that in my 20’s I wore Opium. But that mostly I love the smell of nature and that I don’t have any commercially scented products in my house. She smiled and started pulling bottles off the shelf - psychically sizing me up and already sensing my scent and thinking about a fragrance for me. This woman is truly a genius on many levels. We then began a scent seminar, really, smelling probably 30 different essences. Learning where they came from and how their scents are different from what you'd expect. Some I liked so much my eyes involuntarily rolled back in my head with deep delight – others made me pull away in disgust. Dawn was noting all this and “reading” me.
This Kenyan Musk was heavenly. Not like the musk perfumes you remember from high school, but deeper and sweeter, without being sickly sweet. Heavenly.
The black pepper was a deeper note, spicy, but not so peppery. The holy basil had a deep green smell. One of Dawn's genius qualities is her ability to describe and translate scent into words. This is an art all by itself. We'd smell and she'd describe and then it all made sense. We'd smell again and we could "see" what she was talking about. Dawn is a painter as well as a perfume artist. So she easily translates aesthetic criteria into aromatic criteria. Notice I said "she" translates it easily. It's not so easy for the rest of us. Her breadth and depth of knowledge is staggering.
Dawn collects vintage fragrances in their lovely bottles. She and Lisa had a lively exchange comparing notes about perfumes they remembered from their childhoods and teens.
Dawn is getting ready to move a few doors down in her warehouse district and in her new space she'll have room for a small "Scent Museum", where these lovelies will be displayed. One of the services she offers is to recreate a perfume from long ago. If you have an old perfume bottle from your Aunt Edwina that still brings tears to your eyes, Dawn can recreate it for you. She's that amazingly genius with scents. She can smell it and from that alone, she can recreate it. Stunning.
After we'd narrowed it down a bit, Dawn began to get a sense of what I was all about.
She made my signature perfume by blending it right on my skin, so I am part of the perfume. My personal fragrance smells different on me than on anyone else because I'm part of the perfume. As Michelle would say, "How cool is THAT?".
So the blending went. She started with a couple of "base" notes (or is it bass) and added a few middle notes and then some top notes.
She kept very detailed notes as we went along, writing down the exact formula.
She blends her perfumes the old fashioned way, one drop at a time.
A lot of back and forth and adding this and then some of that, and drop by drop, voila! My personal scent was created. I still haven't named it. I need to live with it for a while before a name will come to me. The amazing thing is that when my husband and daughter smelled me (separately) when I came home , they both said, "It smells just like you." Whoa. She totally got me and translated that into a personal scent.
This is my wonderful and beautiful friend Leah who also came with me on this magical day. She's a delightfully funny and incredibly supportive friend and I was so glad to have her be a part of this sensorial experience.
Dawn has been in the perfume business for 16 years. Starting out in Boston as an apprentice and then opening her own studio and business. I'm sure it's been more than challenging at times. It is for all artists. Her positive attitude and appreciation for the beauty of life is everywhere. From her small but charming studio/warehouse, to her love and deep passion for scents and fragrance, to her generosity of time and expertise, this is a women who is driven, in the best possible way, to bring beauty into this world through her sensual art.
Even her small bathroom had these little gems on a tiny shelf.
"People are finally getting the idea that fragrance is an art form," she says. "It's about what it's like to be alive, what it's like to be a human being. That's what every artist does. You translate your ideas about life into something other people can experience."*
To read more about Dawn's journey to perfume genius, you can go to her Parfum des Beaux Arts website here. Once there you can peruse and shop her fragrance collections. Her website is very thorough and an education in itself. Have a look. If you are in the Boulder area she has open studio hours on Saturday's noon to 5:00 p.m., but check the website in May as she is moving to her new location and I'm not sure what her open studio hours will be. If you would like a personal fragrance made just for you, you need to call or email to make an appointment.
For those of you who are fired up by this post and want to go deeper into the fascinating world of scent, I highly recommend the film, "Perfume". It's not for the faint of heart. It's got a creepy aspect to it, no doubt. But the way the story of this early perfumer is told, you get a deeper understanding of the world of scent. Visually dark and mysterious it evokes an olfactory experience you won't soon forget. I highly recommend it. Here's the movie trailer:
* Boulder Weekly newspaper did a lovely article on Dawn in October 2007, which I have quoted in this blog post. You can read it here.
I've had precious little time to devote to my creative side this week. My hour in the garden on the freakishly warm day. And a little time at my work table revealed the beginning of this new page. Dreamlike, odd in a kind of cool way I think. I'll post when I've finished it.
Heading off today to celebrate my birthday (which is in December and a totally sucky month to have a birthday, so I decided to postpone) with 2 BFFs. We are lunching at one of my favorite Boulder restaurants The Kitchen and then a very fun visit to Dawn Spencer Hurwitz's perfume studio for some scent tutelage and personal perfume blending. Cool, huh?
I think I like my birthday waaaayy better in April.
