Inspiration for the New Year

As I work on my new perfume, I have been gathering little bits of inspiration that bring me joy.

Yesterday I listened to French accordion music composed by Yann Tiersen as I gathered my 'perfume medicine'  and dove into another new palette of scents. In addition to Fir, the botanicals that I am working with right now are Vetiver, Helichrysum and Lemon. 

Each perfume tells a rich story and within each tale, images, colors, nuances and geometry are revealed. The name of the perfume that I am working on now is 'Mariposa', in Spanish, this means 'butterfly'. I am so curious about butterflies now, especially the Blue Morpho. My grandmother Isabelle often wore the wing of a Morpho around her neck in a beautifully encased glass tear dropped necklace. I was recently gifted two beautiful pieces with Morpho butterfly wings and so I am very interested in how they transmute light, their life cycles and their symbolic meanings.

In this collage, the orange and white seal is a character for 'happiness' from a Chinese chop, the blooming scarlet Amaryllis is stunning, the tulips  graced my office this past month, the bathing beauty was a card design that I created many moons ago, the butterfly one of my watercolors, the peony is from my garden last Spring, the Chinese motifs from a book of ancient ceramic designs, the spruce cone from a walk in the woods, the botanical painting belonged to my mother, and the crochet shawl made by my Argentine grandmother Rita.

The photograph below is of a Black Swallowtail butterfly that I took last summer, over a picture my grandmother's shawl. I love how the two different elements tell a new story when they come together.

So pretty.