Ok.. the opportunity to get the word out here on my blog about my ongoing series called ‘sense’ at BMoCA (Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art) has come and I am seizing it! I started this work in January and one thing or another always came up to interrupt me when attempting to write and post about it. Not this time. *TONIGHT at 8 pm I will again be doing a ‘sense’ presentation*, working with and interpreting another artist’s show; this time it’s called W3FI (pronounced WEE-FY) and it’s part of an installation called the Biodome project. The W3FI installation speaks to the interconnectedness we all now experience as we interact on the internet. The internet in its more mature stages is now a place that what you say and do have consequences and we all have a responsibility to do right in this new global community. The concept of ‘persona’ is an underlying element of the project and this is where I will be coming into the mix and talking about how scent has always been used to communicate persona and how we do and can consciously use it in the modern world. It’s going to be exciting. And I am excited to be talking about this *BEFORE* the actual event, even if it is tonight. So, if any of you are going to be in Boulder tonight, please come to BMoCA and experience scent in a new way and in relation to the W3FI / Biodome Project.
Now, this also brings me to another great pleasure, which is to start publishing posts I write months ago when I did my first sense talk and then my second. These were more direct ‘multi-sensory’ art interpretations, so less conceptual and intellectual, of visual art into aroma. Below is a 2/3 finished piece but it will have to stand as it is, since it’s been too long since the event for me to finish that line of thought. I hope you will bear with me and still find it an interesting read. I dated some of the passages so you would be aware of what was written in January, 2011 , April, 2011 and my little tidbits added now. Enjoy~
****************************************************************************************************************************************
sense at BMoCA 1:
{4:2011} If I was really on top of everything in my world I would probably have written posts about my events at BMoCA (Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art) *before* they happened…but as life is easily running wild around us and time seems to be no different, I’m instead reporting about these magical evenings instead of promoting them ahead of time. And, since there’s so much juiciness to the ‘sense’ events, I’m making two posts. I’m looking forward to a potential third this summer. There’s been talk of it but we’ll have to see.
Kiki by Stephen Batura, 2010
{1:2011} : “Experience Stephen Batura’s work in a whole new way – through your sense of smell. Renowned perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s scent interpretations of Batura’s paintings bring a whole new dimension to the exhibition while exploring the realm of scent as art.” (excerpt from BMoCA Calendar)
Although it was a cold and dark evening in January, about a dozen intrepid art enthusiasts made it to BMoCA to hear me talk about creating aroma as art (in it’s conception; construction and use to express ‘the muse’ that can show up as a painting, sculpture, music, movement / dance or as a scent). It was wonderful to describe the construction of scent as architectural (the base is the foundation, the middle notes or heart as the rooms and walls that create the space to move within and the topnotes as the roof, or the part of the structure that moves upward, touches the sky and finishes the shape) and to speak to the correlation and associations of aroma to color, shape, line, juxtaposition and texture.
Being synesthetic, to sense these artistic criteria in scent comes easily to me and I am always intrigued to find out how many others have the same sensibility (or not). It’s also incredible to introduce these very new concepts to people when referencing art as many have never conceived of aroma design as on par with or similar in anyway with painting and sculpture in particular.
Prospero by Stephen Batura, 2010
So, for the talk I started with the basics: top, middle and base notes. As we smelled our way through the selected raw materials that I brought to illustrate the concepts: Virginia cedarwood as texturally soft but dusty, sheer but dense and color wise, a wash of alizarin crimson; oakmoss absolute 5% dilute has an earthy, velvety texture with a black-ish – green hue (well, green oakmoss does…brown oakmoss is another story); bergamot has a zesty, sparkling and “popping” texture like sparklers are in fireworks with a cool, light bluish green wash of color and a pale yellow undertone; black pepper has a thin, black linear quality and a subtle texture as anything peppery will, but it is smoother than you might expect; and Siam benzoin has a lovely rusty-golden ‘hue’ with a lush velvety texture that can be a bit sticky when undiluted but just like pure silk velvet when diluted to about 10%.
{7:2011} Sadly, I stopped here and I am not exactly sure how to finish this post properly now that it is 6 months later… I will say that samples of these art project perfumes will be available on the new site as soon as that gets finished, too. But that is a whole other project.
{1:2011} The good news is that immediately after this first sense evening, I was invited back to work with the museum again to interpret and create ‘aroma sculptures’ for Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira’s work. * see sense at bmoca 2 (coming up next).
****************************************************************************************************************************************
image credits: bmoca link for info on the w3fi installation here
bmoca link to the batura show – for propsero here
denver post link – for kiki here
Like this:
Like Loading...
Read Full Post »
DSH notebook 
