Traces is a relational olfactory work that treats scent as a material record of the absent. For each piece, I distill a perfume from scents tied to another person's most meaningful memories, suspended in a base carrying a human-worn scent.

For the first piece, the memory-scents were pine needles from a cabin and yuzu from Japan, where many of the memories were made. The botanical material was steam-distilled in a small glass apparatus: a round-bottom flask over a spirit lamp, drawn through a condenser to separate essential oil and hydrosol. The perfume base is perfumer's alcohol infused with cotton worn against the skin for twenty-four hours, carrying a personal scent as the connective ground beneath the wearer's memories. Worn on skin, the perfume warms, shifts, and fades over hours.

Process & Materials

• Memory-source botanicals: pine needles (cabin), yuzu (Japan)
• Extraction: steam/hydro-distillation — round-bottom flask, spirit lamp, condenser; yields essential oil + hydrosol
• Base: perfumer's alcohol infused 24 hours with worn cotton (personal scent)
• Apparatus: glass distillation rig on ring stand; collecting beaker and cooling vessel

Future directions: composing memory-archives from scents contributed by others, and a sited installation where visitors encounter each memory-source individually before the blend