what's up?

hand nose coordination

when drawing an object that sits in front of you, you need a special kind of hand-eye coordination. Besides learning (again) how to see properly, I think this coordination is something that needs training, to some extend. And to some extend, I guess, you just have it, like a gift.

In my eye, when painting an object, it is critical however that you leave room for another dimension besides the 2,3 dimensions that you try to coordinate between your hand and eyes. Let’s call this dimension the imaginary coordinate system. Painting is therefore a wonderful exercise, as it does not only teaches us to see the world with open eyes, and a focused eye, looking at an object for an extended time, but it teaches us also a lot about ourselves, and how we experience the world.

I often say, creating perfumes is like painting, whereby you paint a fragrant object that develops in front of the observer’s nose over time. This comparison seems the longer the more inadequate.

For once, a fragrance is an object that develops once you set it free, and vanishes finally. It is like a painting would start flowing off the canvas once you hang it up your wall and disappears after a few hours.

And from the perspective of the creator, hand-nose coordination is not comparable to hand-eye coordination. It is as if you would have to learn to paint and coordinate your hand again for every color that you use….

A funny note on the side: what photo taking is in the world of objects is head space perfumery in the world of scents. A flower’s head space analysis is like a digital image instruction pixel by pixel, and depending on the details (resolution) you get a vague idea or a complete high resolution flower scent.

Interesting… also interesting and insightful: How many perfume lovers have sign the petition on Parfumo.de, and where they might be from. It is a well written petition, addressing the EU commission and upcoming changes of the EU cosmetics regulation. Here is the link: http://www.parfumo.net/petition/petition.html 

I only see the total number of petitions submitted (900 per today) and the most recent submitters` nationality. A lot are actually non European submissions.

I find it interesting, as the EU is a 500+Mio inhabitants region, that so far only a few hundred perfume lovers could be motivated to sign.

To give you an idea: on parfumo.de, there are 42945 fragrances from 3540 brands uploaded in the database. I learned this a while ago: The number of perfume lovers who actually care for what has changed (changed formulas for instance) and what continues to change is smaller than you would think. My five scents…The same is true for a couple of other aspects when it comes to perfumes.

Time to proof me wrong.