Vespertina at Fragrance Bouquet

"Meaning “Evening”, Vespertina is a glorious, floral scent with rich veins of spice. Its construction is absolutely marvelous, with top notes that you’ll want to chase after like fleeting dreams, floral heart notes so deep they make you feel like you can get lost in their nuances forever, and spicy, woody base notes that linger comfortingly on the skin until the skin’s own beauty shines through."

These are a few of the eloquent words Divina has written to describe the botanical perfume Vespertina. Head on over to her blog to read more and post a comment if you have experienced Vespertina.

Divina's Fragrance Bouquet Blog

I am particularly struck by her choice of descriptive words and paragraphs. They mimic the journey that the character Vespertina goes on in her quest for the spiritual heart. It is obviously that Divina has a very astute nose, besides being a gifted writer.

I feel very humbled when an inspired writer transcribes their sensory exploration of one of my perfumes. It is a profoundly tangible sensation. I heard once that artists live and create for recognition not for money. Hmmmm....

Vespertina perfume extrait is available at my new etsy shop in a variety of quantities from
.25 gram and 1 gram vials to the 7gram bottle. Read more about Vespertina on the website and here at this journal.

The image at top, ©Greg Spalenka, is a cropped version of the music cover CD titled The Visions of Vespertina.

Roxana Illuminated Perfume™

Illuminated Heaven & Hell

“The shell must break before the bird can fly.”
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The intersection of perfume and visual art transpired for me while studying aromatherapy back in the early nineties. In 2001 the concept of creating natural perfume as a constructed artwork, like my paintings really struck. Then while at a Visionary Art workshop in Austria I saw, within even more clarity, how all the pieces fit together.


Over at my visual art journal I just posted a piece about an image I created titled H2 Illuminated, Heaven and Hell. This was brought on by uploading the limited edition Giclee up on etsy.

Here are some links for your journey...

Roxana Villa - Visual Art Blog
Old Masters, New Visions Workshop in Austria

Roxana Illuminated Perfume™

Painting at top "Heaven", below "Hell" and here to the right is a little sketch that started the whole thing going.
All are © Roxana Villa.

Fitting the Pieces

I came across a book on Gregs bedside table yesterday. It was given to him by one of his music making buddies. His accolades have put it in the sphere of the Artist's Way, one of my favorites, so my curiosity was peaked from the onset.

Here is a snippet for you....

"In the tricky business of fitting the pieces together, we work from a double point of view, moving deductively from our original inspiration of the whole and inductively from our particular inspirations of detail. Sometimes what is needed is to crudely smash through the confusions and obstacles; sometimes the most delicate, patient, intermittent massaging of the problem. Sometimes it is we ourselves who need to be hit over the head or gently massaged. Sometimes the pieces we love most are the ones that end up on the cutting room floor. They may be some of the first-born images upon which the whole work was built. But when a building is completed, the scaffolding must come down."

~ Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play: The Power of Improvisation in Life and the Arts

Meanwhile, I continue to take photos in my mock photo studio...the living room. I am contemplating purchasing a "photo booth" and setting it up the bigger studio. What began as a simple task of photographing perfume bottles has enlarged into a....not monster....invading morning glory vine. With two shops on Etsy one for aromatic art and one for visual art the photographs have come in very handy.

When you don't have super website techy skills, venues like a blog and Etsy are super handy.
It's getting super busy here with orders, so I may not be posting as often...we'll see.

The patchwork tapestry image above has been put together using some of the photographs of the perfume bottles and packaging taken over the last few weeks. Some have been altered are move into the photo-illustrative realm.

Roxana Illuminated Perfume™
Roxana Illuminated Perfume™ on Etsy

Image above, Perfume Tapestry © Roxana Villa,
image at right is the cover of the book mentioned above.