Along the Winding Road

In the eighties when I moved to New York City one year out of college I worked as a freelance illustrator. Among my first jobs was a series of illustrations for Money Magazines Mutual Fund Issue. The great thing about that entry point job for the Time Life conglomerate was I was able to work for variety of other magazines within the corporation and start meeting several art directors.

One art director along that pathway was Sandra DiPasqua who eventually ended up at Connoisseur Magazine in the late eighties. I was called in to contribute an illustration to the monthly fragrance column which turned into a regular gig. At the time I had no inkling what-so-ever that eventually I would find myself working in the field of perfume.

Life is so crazy and interesting when you get to survive it for over half a century! My astrology chart has a dualistic element to it, which may account for each artistic venture I get into has two forms to it. For example, as an illustrator my color work was paintings but my black and white work, like these images done for Connoisseur, were scratch board. In fragrance I make liquid and solid perfumes.

I came across all these old tear sheets while looking for a postcard to share with a visitor. It occurred to me that you might find them interesting. I was also curious about the articles, so I took them to bed one night and read through them all.

Unfortunately no pearls of wisdom were gained from the articles, other than there sure is a lot of misinformation about perfume ingredients! I know, no big surprise, as this is still happening today. The fragrant components referred to in the article made it sound like the big perfume houses and trendy fragrances of the 80s were using essential oils, the writer sometimes even alluded to historical uses. (Sigh) Anyway, it sure was an interesting journey into the past.

I have quite a lot of these images, although not sure if I still have all the originals. I'm going to check and see if I have enough to print up a little book and perhaps a calendar for 2015.