Trust Art - Anne McClain - Perfumery School

Perfume Fountain for Humanity

A public project led by artist Anne McClain

Project Proposal

The creation of a perfume begins with a brief. For Anne’s project, that brief is to create a scent based on the experience of an act of humanity.

In September of 2009, Anne will travel to the city of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico with a group of twelve friends and perfumers and spend one week volunteering at the Casa de los Angeles, teaching art and visiting the local botanical garden at a day care center for children of single mothers. This act will serve as a tribute to a friend of Anne’s who volunteered at the Casa de los Angeles in 2003 and wrote of her experience, “I want to work with children..and do something to somehow improve their lives. I know that sometimes that means simply being 'present' to them..sharing a hug, holding them, smiling with them. We don't always have to do the big things to make a difference. If in my time of working with them I can benefit their families and the community in which they live I will be grateful.”

In Grasse, France, the capital of the perfume industry, Anne will create the Humanity scent by combining the techniques of modern perfumery and her studies in aromatherapy. Anne's intention is to use the inherent healing and transformative effects of natural plant materials to create a scent to uplift, encourage relaxation and making connections, stimulate compassion, and nurture a sense of letting go.

The Humanity scent will take the form of a fountain of perfumed water. A place of gathering often found in town squares (in Grasse, a fountain is located in the central square where the daily flower market takes place; in San Miguel de Allende the area where the fountain is located is called El Jardin), the fountain will serve as a place for communing, contemplation, and reflection. The creation of the fountain will be a collaborative effort between Anne, glass artist Alan Iwamura, and industrial designer Lance McGregor.

The fountain will be placed in a public space in New York, acting as a gathering place for people to experience the inspiration and meaning behind Humanity. The fountain is meant to transmit positive energy into the public. The question it will pose is: can good will be spread through scent?

About the Artist

Anne McClain is currently attending the Grasse Institute of Perfumery, taking courses in natural and synthetic raw materials, chemistry, and creation. She studied environmental studies, philosophy, and art at Brown University.

Anne fell into scent as an artistic medium through photography. Anne used photography in the same way she uses scents now - to flatten an experience or memory into something tangible. She also studied aromatherapy to understand the psychological effects the distillation of flowers, resins, barks, peels, leaves and other plant materials have on people.

Anne is passionate about revealing scent's power as artistic medium, and the unparalleled beauty of natural raw materials.

Artist's Past Work

Photography naturally lead Anne to scent artistry. Both mediums lend themselves to the pursuit of trying to capture moments and memories. Anne loves the dreamy, lingering quality that the memory of place can give over time. The excitement and displacement of travel leads one to an experience of being untethered. Anne likes to try and take those feelings, somewhere between illusion and reality, and to condense it, to flatten it, to create something so that she can remember what it feels like, always.

108, 2004
While spending four months living in Nepal, Anne studied with a rinpoche and was initiated into Tibetan Buddhism by a lama. This book recounts some of the insights into her spiritual practice, accompanied by photographs.

Transit/Home, 2005
For a period of a few years Anne travelled incessantly visiting Thailand, Indonesia, Baja California, Japan, and Hawaii, all the while thinking of someone she loved. They circled the globe on different paths, sometimes meeting and sometimes not. They took photographs influenced by each other and collected them into a book.

Kept, 2008
Stemming from her fascination with all things relating to memory, Anne was thinking about the phrase 'a kept woman'. She realized that not only would she most likely be keeping herself, she wanted it that way. At the time she was disappointed in love and conceived of a loverʼs gift to herself. she cut a hole through the center of a book about Paris, writing a story of lost love along the edges. In the void she placed a ring and the book became a jewelry box which she kept for herself.

Perfume - Left

Perfume - Right1

Perfume - Right2

Wednesday

Feb182009

Perfumery School

At a certain point I wanted to get more serious and take classes in perfumery. After all, I lived in New York City, where everything is available, right? I hunted for perfume classes for nearly two years. I searched art schools and beauty schools. I spent countless hours on the internet. Nothing. Eventually, I learned a couple of things: there are perfumery schools in France, and there are schools within the big international scent manufacturing corporations.

The most well-know perfumery school is ISIPCA in Versailles, a three year program requiring a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, and of course, fluency in french. Having neither, that didn’t seem like an option for me.

Most perfumes on the mass market are created alongside flavors and scents for what is called functional perfumery, or the countless detergents, deodorants, and generic floor washes, at companies such as Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, Symrise, and Takasago. There are smaller companies which manufacture scents, and of course there have always been the niche fragrance houses. (Chandler Burr, the perfume critic for the New York Times, wrote an illuminating book on the development and creation of two mass-market perfumes, one by Hermes and the other, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely, in a book called The Perfect Scent.) Many of these larger manufacturing companies have schools internally to train their employees, but truthfully, I was not interested in working in a big corporation. I wanted to learn the art of perfumery, not the art of perfumery within the guidelines of a huge corporation swayed endlessly by the market and profit margins.

All this to say that eventually, after making up in my mind that I had to study perfumery, no matter what the obstacles, that I would quit my job and beg to be an apprentice if need be, I found a school. I am now one of twelve students attending the Grasse Institute of Perfumery in a village in Southern France for one year.

February 18, 2009 at 6:46 |

1 Comment

Reader Comments (1)

Hello. I'm an university student in South Korea (ROK) and want to be a perfumer. I have searched about perfumery schools and found your blog. Your writing is very very fit to me, because the emotions that you mentioned in the first section of the post are the same as mine I have felt these days. Preparing to enter the perfumery school is one of perplexities and I have gone through various hardships in taking information about it. Could you tell me about the informations of your school, GIP? The most curiosity I have is the requirements for admission. And do you safisty to GIP to your interest in fragrance? It's a little shy for me to ask such a thing as a stranger, but I'll wait for your reponse. Have a fragrant day !

September 16, 2013 |

Sylvie Arum Choi

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