Saturn Day & Night Events

I have been invited to be one of the featured artists at the California Craft and Folk Art Museum Global Bazaar. Here is the text from their website:

"Along with LACMA's annual event, LACMA MUSE ART WALK, CAFAM will be featuring over 15 local vendors, offering the best in handcrafted, fair-trade, and artisan-produced items. Some one-of-a-kind treasures you will find include ceramics, handmade candles, vintage image magnets, jewelry, clothing, hand-blended fragrant oils, hand-blown glass, and more. As always, CAFAMs award-winning Museum Shop will be open with a further array of worldly treasures! Music and refreshments will be provided."

The location is the California Craft and Folk Art Museum Courtyard located at 5814 Wilshire Blvd., across the street from LACMA.

I will be bringing an array of all our scented delights as well as some of the brand new perfume lockets created in collaboration with Lori Patton of Heartworks by Lori.

Please stop by and introduce yourself. Master Gregorio, the illuminator of our perfumes, will also be on hand. We look forward to meeting you and sharing the world of botanical perfumery.


In the evening we are off to a fund raising event for Project Peace on Earth to finance the upcoming June 7-12 pre-production trip to Manger Square in Bethlehem, Palestine. Greg and I met Steve Robertson (the brainchild of Project Peace on Earth) and his loving wife Teresita when we all did the "Heart Virtue" Saturday workshop together. We are delighted to be contributing our talent to help raise funds for this extraordinary event.

I have been formulating a perfume for Project Peace On Earth for some time now. At the event I will offer a short educational presentation about botanical perfumery and the quest to manifest a Peace Perfume. I am looking forward to everyones feedback on what the is the scent we most associate with peace.

In early 2008 Greg began collaborating with the renown T’angka painter Romio Shrestha to create an image together for Project Peace on Earth. The image manifested within a few months and is now available for everyone. Be the first to view an awesome, hot off the press 32"x47.5" limited edition giclee print of the Peace Has Begun artwork!

Created by Greg and Romio this art embodies the spirit of Project-Peace On Earth, and the union of east and west cultures.

There will be two limited edition versions for sale, (300) 26"x39" lithograph posters at $50.00 each, and (25) 32"x48" high end giclee prints at $1000.00 each. These prints will be numbered, signed, and embossed by the Peace Has Begun seal. Available for pre-order at the May 30th fund raising event mentioned above, and online now at the Spalenka shop on Etsy. The editions will be available end of June for pick up at a gala celebrity signing, and for shipping. Order now, as these will sell out fast.

Photograph at top embellished perfume locket, Peace Has Begun Image ©Greg Spalenka.

Save the Oaks

The scent of the day is Q, Quercus agrifolia, devoted to the Coastal Live Oak. I started my fragrance line with this botanical perfume. The intention connected with Q is to bring awareness to the native Oaks of California. This path was revealed when a contractor bought the empty lot next to us to build a huge McMansion. We organized our neighborhood to protect the Oaks and the development of the lot.

To my regret, the contractor that we have been wrestling with has come back from the dead. Although the bank foreclosed on his other project, like a horror film, he has returned. We received the letter from the city informing us that another hearing has been set. Good grief, here we go yet again!

I'm feeling quite distraught at the moment. Intending that in the morrow the feisty self will be back, ready to once again organize the neighbors to defend oaks and land. I am calling forth Soverieignty, the Celtic Goddess of the land, to help us. According to the book The Celtic Way of Seeing: "Sovereignty holds the the axis mundi. She is the one who bestows "rulership" to those who are in right relationship with her."1 Thus, please anoint yourselves with Q and appeal to Sovereignty for her assistance.

I took the photo at top on Monday while hiking in Malibu State Park. It is a gigantic Quercus lobata we came across on our adventure through the woods.

1. The Celtic Way of Seeing by Frank MacEowen, page 52.

Roxana at Indie Perfumes

I've been blessed once again by the eloquent word smithing of a lover of aromatics. Lucy Raubertas, who I had the pleasure of meeting at the Sniffapalooza Fall Ball, has written a very succinct and beautiful review of our botanical perfumes. Please head on over to her blog to experience beauty filled prose. I am so humbled, thank you very, very much Lucy! It's such a pleasure when someone who really "gets" what these handcrafted botanical perfumes are about, especially when it is an individual with poetic skills like Ms Raubertas.

IndiePerfumes