“Like the odor of brine from the
oceans comes the thought of other years.”
- Longfellow
When I was a child, I wanted to be an artist or perhaps a scientist.
Instead I am a perfumer – this is perhaps a bit of both. I’ve
been described as one of the most innovative perfumers of the 21st
Century. I’ve won awards, my work is in museums and countless
people in all civilized parts of the globe enjoy the unique scents
I create. Much to my surprise, at least in a small way I have changed
how people think of perfume: what it is & how it’s used.
This is a brief history of how that happened…
Childhood
1960’s
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I grew up in a tiny town in the country – many of my favorite
scents are based on memories of my childhood there: dirt & dandelions,
vegetable gardens, walks in the fall woods, snow (which meant school
was cancelled), wet rocks from the river and cookies made by my mother
and favorite aunt.
I spent a lot of time making things – Lego blocks & cardboard
were my favorite mediums. I imagined when I grew up I would continue
to make things. I didn’t yet know what exactly but I dreamed
of a small shop where I would sell the marvelous things I made…
I also spent a great deal of time reading. I began to collect books
at a very early age & I still do.
High
School Chemistry Late 70’s
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Chemistry Class was a thorn in my side – I didn’t care
about it at ALL. However, Mr Horne was a marvelous teacher & a
monument of patience. He impressed upon me the importance of precision
in weighing, measuring & exact notation. Little did I know then
how useful this discipline would be later on…
Art
& Architecture
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I had an excellent & brilliantly talented art teacher who began
giving me private lessons in painting. Although I loved painting and
have a very good “eye”, being a starving artist didn’t
appeal to me. I did want a “career” in a creative field
however so I decided to study Architecture.
I began to study architecture when still in high school. I did a special
program at Carnegie Mellon but decided after graduation to attend
Columbia University instead. While at Columbia I did a lot of set
& costume design but decided neither building nor the theater
were really right for me.
Sometimes now I regret not pursuing theater design – I really
did love doing that and was rather good at it…
New
Wave – New York in the 80’s
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I suppose this is my defining decade. Music, Style, Fashion, Films,
Clubs, Magazines & most especially People all seemed so new. As
my friend Dianne Brill said to me recently, “Individuality was
celebrated then.”
I couldn’t have put it better.
Taxi
Driver
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I worked at a great many odd jobs during the 80’s but driving
a cab was perhaps the oddest. People are generally shocked when they
find I did this. Still I drove for a brief period and this was when
I discovered that I Hated Perfume. Women would get into my car in
the evening wearing some horrible scent that made me sick. 12 hours
later in the cold freezing dawn, my eyes would still be watering &
my stomach churning…
Parsons
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n 1987 I decided a career making clothes
might be the way to go. I’d been drawing them for years &
couture fascinated me. So I began to take classes at Parsons. I
quickly came to realize that 7th Avenue and I would not be friends
and I suppose I was too frightened to pack up and move to Paris.
(I don’t speak French.) And I realized that I am not really
interested in fashion – only clothes…
Barney’s
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In order to pay for school, I took
a job in the cosmetics department at Barney’s. This was NOT
a nice place to work – everything you’ve heard about
that store is absolutely true. Still, as ridiculous as it was, I’m
glad to have been there because it ultimately led to my job at Kiehl’s.
KIEHL’S
1988 - 1992
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Kiehl’s in those days was fabulous.
Jami Morse, who had just taken over the company from her father,
is the most brilliant person I’ve ever worked for. She had
crystal clear vision and boundless determination. Although she was
certainly one tough cookie, I have absolute respect for her and
what she accomplished. Everything I know about running a business
in a different way I learned from her.
And Kiehl’s is where I began to make perfume.
At that time, the company had an incredible range of scents (about
128). Part of my job was to dram out scents that customers ordered.
I quickly became familiar with them, recognized my favorites, and
in the six spare minutes I had now and then, I began to do very
simple blends for myself. It turned out I was good at it and I soon
began to do blends for some of Kiehl’s special clients as
well.
My
First Company 1992 - 2004
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In 1992, I had to leave New York –
I simply couldn’t live here any longer. I became very tired
of the noise, the crowd & the lack of green growing things.
In January of that year, I moved out to my family’s farm in
Pennsylvania and began to figure out what to do next. I decided
once again to pursue my childhood dream of making things –
it was simply a matter of deciding just what things…
Later that spring, a friend suggested that I read “A Natural
History of the Senses”. I found Ms. Ackerman’s first
chapter on the Sense of Smell so profoundly magical that I began
to think seriously about making scent.
I drew up a plan, set up a company, began to design the package
and of course worked on creating my very first perfume. This took
a while but by the fall of 1993 everything was ready.
My first scent was one that I’d actually made for myself –
it was blended entirely of natural essential oils. Whenever I wore
it, people told me how good I smelled and asked what it was. I thought
that boded well. It was first sold at Henri Bendel in the spring
of 1994 and new scents quickly followed. The company grew rapidly
and we moved from the kitchen table to a workshop in the barn to
a small factory in a nearby town.
I have always loved the smell of things – particularly growing
things. I decided to try to capture some of these smells & my
first real breakthrough was Dirt. One of my greatest pleasures was
digging among the vegetables, herbs & flowers in my small garden
on the farm. I loved the smell of the fresh clean earth and decided
to bottle it. It was a far greater success than I’d ever dreamed
& I suppose the rest is History.
Over the next few years, I developed an astonishing range of scents
– possibly one of the most unusual in the world. There was
no smell however strange that I didn’t try to capture –
as long as it gave someone a deep and abiding pleasure it was on
my list.
I think Snow was my greatest achievement for that company. I worked
YEARS on that scent but finally completed it in 1999. The following
spring, on what was definitely the most stunning night of my life,
it won 2 Fragrance Foundation awards.
In the spring of 2003, 70 of my scents were included in the Cooper
Hewitt National Design Museum’s Triennial exhibition. This
is the first time in history that a major art museum recognized
that scent is DESIGNED. Although I still feel deeply honored to
be the first perfumer to break through this wall, I can’t
help but think that there are so many other perfumers who should
have been recognized first & a good deal sooner. Still the way
has been cleared.
It was this exhibition that also made me begin to think about perfume
as art…
The
End June 2004
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Although there were many good things
that happened during my years with my old company, my own personal
relationship with it was almost always deeply & extremely painful.
That I won’t talk about now or ever – the details aren’t
important. But this is why, in 2004, I severed my connection with
the company I began 12 years before. I’d had Enough &
Enough Said.
The point is that I survived, learned a great deal from the good
& the terrible, gained a lot of valuable experience & simply
moved on. It was time to get back to what was important to me –
making perfume.
The
Beginning July 2004 – …?
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In the spring of 2003 I moved my studio
from the East Village just across the river to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
This is a wonderful neighborhood full of creative people of all
sorts. Just the place for me…
In July 2004 I first opened my CB I Hate Perfume Gallery to the
public. Based on the seeds planted in my head during the Cooper
Hewitt Triennial, I decided to begin exploring perfume as Art.
Since I began in 2004, I have refined my collection of accords &
expanded it to include many new scents and a great many more natural
materials. Part of my mission is still to capture every possible
pleasant scent.
I’ve returned to my original love of making actual PERFUME
– those that tell stories and capture exact experiences. I
began my own collection of CB perfumes and add to it each season.
And I am back to making custom scents as well. The whole process
is ever changing & expanding. This is marvelous to me and I’m
happier than I’ve been in a decade.
And I’m a long way from done.
I’ve been exploring perfume as art for some time now. In the
spring of 2006, I did a piece called “Everything Here is False”
for a group show on the Lower East Side.
In May of 2006 I opened my first solo exhibition at the University
Science Center’s Esther Klein Gallery in Philadelphia. This
show was sponsored in part by the Monell Chemical Senses Center
– an institution I’ve long admired and it was an honor
to work with them.
The exhibition was entitled “Scent is Life” and explored
various aspects of individual olfactory perception as well as the
deep autobiographical connection between scent and memory. The show
was very well received and I’ve had a few inquiries to “take
it on the road”…
The
Future
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Of course I’ll continue to make
new perfumes and to expand my collection of accords. I also plan
to keep exploring new ways to use perfume.
I continue to explore other ideas & projects that don’t
have anything to do with perfume – still they are about making
things…
And quite possibly at some point in the future, I will actually
take a vacation.
