06 Nov Conscious Creativity…with The Experimental Perfume Club

When I began writing Chapter 7 of my book ‘The Senses and Synaesthesia’, I hadn’t realised that it would become the heart of what I wanted ‘Conscious Creativity’ to be about. I realised how passionate I was about getting people to connect to their senses and how acknowledging even the most everyday scents and sounds is crucial to developing personal creativity . I started to imagine what my book would smell like, the pages and the print, and then I suddenly realised that I actually wanted to create a scent that I felt represented the book itself.

I met Emmanuelle from The Experimental Perfume Club last year during the ‘Perfume’ exhibition at Somerset House ( there’s a post about it here ), and I asked if I could come to one of her Open Lab days in Hackney so that I could blend a ‘Conscious Creativity’ scent. Open Lab means you can spend time exploring and experimenting with the vast perfume organ in Emmanuelle’s workshop and create a unique scent of your own. One couple who were there when I was, were blending a scent for their wedding day and another for their honeymoon!  It was a truly amazing and utterly absorbing afternoon and I could have stayed for hours…I experimented with mixing scents rather like I mix paint on a palette, the only difference being I had to look at the scents in my mind’s eye. Time lost significance at The Experimental Perfume Club and I was drawn into a visual and scented space inside my head, which in turn led me to creating an abstract image of the scent I blended with many essential oils including Birch Tar, Coffee and Eucalyptus.

So now ‘Conscious Creativity’ the book, has a corresponding scent and painting.  I wanted the scent to be open and fresh, include a hint of citrus and have a strong woody note to echo my constant Instagram companion, the table. This is my visual journey of my inspirations, texture references and experiments which then became a painting of the scent of ‘Conscious Creativity’…

sketches and texture inspiration… Paintings often start off completely different to what the final piece actually looks like…I started with multi coloured layers so that I would be able to scrape back to reveal hints as I went on… You can order my book ‘Conscious Creativity’ here and please do email me if you would like any more information about my paintings. If you would like more information about The Experimental Perfume Club, you can follow them on Instagram and also look on their website where you’ll find more about their workshops, Open Lab days and fabulous new perfume collection ‘Layers’ ( which I am wearing constantly at the moment! )