Catherine Haley Epstein of Mindmarrow
Profile: I was born in Montreal, grew up in Boston, went to school in upstate New York, and have lived on the West Coast for 26 years, San Francisco for 14 and Portland for the past 12. My path to perfumery has not been linear, but rather a clear extension of the work I’ve done in the psychology of creativity and study of mediums.
Catherine Haley Epstein of Mindmarrow as a young girl
While my work history has no obvious connection to the olfactory landscape.. As a management consultant I learned to effectively juggle multiple projects and to value patience and curiosity when working in uncharted territories. My years as an artist teach me to continuously innovate by regularly destroying routine and complacency. I was a salesperson at the flagship Ralph Lauren store on Madison Avenue in New York City years ago, and assistant to the PR director at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. In San Francisco I managed an ancient Chinese art gallery and later owned a contemporary art gallery. As a management consultant for several years my clients ranged from software companies to the Office of the Surgeon General.
Scent Trunk May 2020 by Catherine Haley-Epstein photo © Scenttrunk
For the past 14 years I’ve been fully committed to writing about contemporary art practice and theory, and to making my own work–including scents. I studied perfumery with the great perfumer, Mandy Aftel and all I learned from her informs my own work even today. Earlier this year Scent Truck commissioned me to create its May edition—the unisex scent I created was inspired by ylang ylang from Nosey Be.
courtesy of Perfumed Plume
I continue to publish arts and culture commentary via my blog, and my book Nose Dive: A Book for the Creative Seeking Potential Through Their Noses is a finalist for the 2020 Perfumed Plume Book of the Year Award.
Nose Dive by Catherine Haley Epstein
My book is also listed on the Institute for Art & Olfaction’s recommended book list for scent study. I founded the Odorbet project with art historian Caro Verbeek to create a list of olfactory expressions and words. This fall I’ll be doing an online workshop for Portland Design Week, “The Art of Scent & Design”. While it was meant to be done in person in April, I’m working with the organizers to create a virtual experience that might be more robust and diverse than originally planned
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Catherine Haley Epstein, On Forgetting, Filling the Flask, exhibited in Portland 2014 and the Hammer Museum for the AIX Scent Fair in 2016.
With regard to my scent work, it began with an installation I began in 2010 on the myth of Psyche. One of her tasks involved collecting water from a rushing waterfall. Scared and unable to make progress, Zeus – disguised as an eagle – swooped in, grabbed her flask, and quickly filled it. The lesson: when you want something, you must put your blinders on and keep your eyes on the prize. And by putting on your blinders you must forget things – something we do naturally. For several years I made paintings, drawings and sculptures about Forgetting. And for a tiny portion of the exhibit I created scents “On Forgetting” including “Forget Last Night”, “Forget Five Years Ago” and so on. Stars aligned and from that point I’ve been making scents more formally.
I’m honored to have been hired to work on a variety of olfactory projects. For Nike I inspired its designers to reconsider scent, and for the BODE in Nashville I curated and developed scent products and delivery systems for its high-end hospitality clients. I also teach non-profit and museum communities about using scent in their creative practices. As my book attests, scent is a superpower: you don’t have to design a fragrance, but you need to think in smells to move your writing, painting and business to new places.
Catherine Haley Epstein
On American Perfumery: We have a lovely community of supportive colleagues, and are learning out of a black box. Most of us are artists, quite comfortable not following rule books, trusting our intuition, and at peace with getting ridiculed – sometimes for good reason – by the old guard. We’re innovators, sharing our knowledge and looking for new ways to experience scent inside and outside the bottle. And we’re afforded incredible insight into a new aspect of luxury, one I spoke briefly about in Milan last April at Esxence. Luxury now is about slowing down, being in a no-talking zone, and having experiences not available to the larger population (e.g., a secluded Airbnb home in Turks and Caicos instead of a hotel). All of these points hit scent on the nose: we have to slow down to smell, without words for specific smells we’re free to enjoy the abstract space, and now with so many niche opportunities to experience smell and taste we’re becoming more nuanced, interesting and interested consumers. Despite how the world looks and feels right now.
Man’s Head Untitled Kiki Smith 2012
Favorite American Artist: My favorite artist at the time of this writing is Kiki Smith, who is an alchemical genius, meaning she combine materials masterfully and unconventionally in the name of the spirit or gestalt versus the object. I believe this is what we do when we work with invisible mediums such as scent, and I’ve just finished a chapter for a book (to be published by Routledge Press in 2021) exploring this concept.
–Catherine Haley Epstein, perfumer, artist and author
Thanks to Catherine Haley Epstein we have 5 ml of Scent Trunk May edition 2020 and a copy of her book Nose Dive, for a USA, EU, UK and Canadian reader ONLY reader. You must be a registered reader. To be eligible. Please leave a comment with what you found fascinating about Catherine Haley Epstein and her path to perfumery, and where you live. The drawing closes 6/25/2020
All photos belong to Catherine Haley Epstein unless otherwise noted.
Catherine Haley Epstein is our 152nd American perfumer in our series, which officially began in 2011 with Dawn Spencer Hurwitz of DSH Perfumes.
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