Virus in the Air, Spasms in my Back There’s a virus in the air, but I can’t see it. People are dying around me, but I can’t save them. There are spikes pierced in my back, spasms, but I can’t touch them. Heartbeats, hell pulsating, my back muscles, I covet in my prayers. I turn right to the left, in my bed, then hang still. Nails impaled, I bleed hourly, Jesus on that cross. Now 73 years of age, my half-sister …
Category: Art
Olfactory Report 3: The lure, the cure, the smells of the forest * Catherine Haley Epstein
Several years ago I made a scent about forgetting: forgetting your ego and the glorious connection we feel to people and things when we do this. Most scent is evocative and reminds us of things past. How about scents that explore the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind? What does forgetting smell like? My conclusion: forgetting smells like the forest. I drew the connection after years of reading the G-rated, PG-rated then grizzly versions of fairy tales, where everything transformative happens …
The Olfactory Report 2: Armpits, Ribaldry, and Animalic Perfumes for Your Valentine, too! * Catherine Haley Epstein
Filthy, Stinky, Sexy Sex hormones come out of our armpits. These apocrine sweat glands do what is called emotional sweating. These hormones affect our behavior and physiology. We know the armpit sex hormone begins after puberty (when we actually begin to emit a smell from our armpits), and they are also located in the areola and nipples of the breast, ear canal, eyelids, wings of the nostril, perianal region, and some parts of the external genitalia. All, one could argue, are erogenous zones. I’ve also written recently about …
“To My Sense of Smell” * Poetry * Gabriela Iacovano
*This poem was inspired by the recent loss of my sense of smell since I contracted COVID-19.* passed the season in rose-muddied berry-tinted dairy-clotted clouds tiny porcelain-and-steam pillars sweet smoke spirals ancient resins candied orange when id never eat it lathering creamy wintry bubbles carrying honeyed mists crushing petals breaking seeds laying ferns on cakes blooming magic feels your absence in the glitter and fog of my soup pot oily kale on broth swirling sea plant emerald frills golden …
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The Olfactory Report 1: Smellicopters and the Smell of Old Books * Catherine Haley Epstein
Aromatica Poetica is delighted to present The Olfactory Report, a monthly column dedicated to the business of our noses. In it scent artist and writer, Catherine Haley Epstein, shares news, thought pieces, reviews and opinions from the olfactory landscape. For our first edition of this one of a kind column, she presents a round up of some of the more exciting events and initiatives of 2020. Despite it being, and continually being, a year full of isolation, dissonance and breaking …
“Goldilocks Closet Secrets” * Images + Text * Janina Aza Karpinska
Here are some pages from different editions of Goldilocks from my collection of Goldilocks Files –Treated, or altered pages, in the style of Tom Phillips, which was a technique I chanced upon years ago, and which gave me the words and expression I lacked by any other means. I have chosen those which relate to the senses – taste; scent; pleasure. As a little bit of background on the actual technique: I’m indebted to stumbling across the Tom Phillips technique …
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Munsterthal Torte * Jazz Baking Video * Marc Wagnon & Sarah Pillow * Includes Recipe!
From the picturesque village of Chandolin, situated in the Val D’Anniviers (a valley in the Swiss Alps) comes this delightful jazz baking video by Marc Wagnon and Sarah Pillow that will tickle your ears with its jazz melody and enchant your eyes with its lovely alpine scenery while it teaches you to make a traditional Munsterthal Torte. The recipe comes from Marc’s grandmother Alice Schellenberg. As you’ll learn, it’s very chocolatey, a bit boozy, and oh so delicious. If you …
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Botanical Flower mask & Mini Art Prints Based on Curtis’ 1787 Botanical Magazine
These botanical flower drawings are hand-rendered by Alabaster Rhumb and based on those by William Curtis in his 1787 Botanical Magazine. The flowers create a wallpaper effect in our Botanical Flower Mask, while each flower—Aster tenellus, Campanula carpatica, Campanula speculum, Ixia flexuosa, Potentilla grandiflora—is also available from Society6 as a mini art print or mini framed art print. Botanical Magazine Front matter The Botanical Magazine Or, Flower-Garden Displayed: In Which The most Ornamental Foreign Plants, cultivated in the Open …
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Waves & Dust & Sparks * Soundscapes + Poetic Text Descriptions * Andy Slater
Memory Waves (Anchor Beach, Woodmont, Connecticut) Before storms the water rises and the trees bend. The dry sand spreads as if fingers forged branches. From the spot I watch and listen from the air is rich. Sea salt spray fro, the east and honeysuckle from the west. The helicopters spin from the trees as the wind picks up and launches domestic smells in arbitrary directions. The synthetic lemon fresh from a laundry room exhaust ,multiple households’ supper, and a rusty …
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