My name is Q and I am so so excited to be the newest addition to the Fumerie family!
My initial interaction with scent was born and then buried itself in my childhood, with the smell of Lantana bushes, Creosote soaked in rain, the wild must of dust storms, Bath and Body Works Warm Vanilla Sugar, unflavored cough medicine, and the smell of my own knees. I came around again to scent in 2013 when I pursued a certificate of Herbalism and worked at The Herb Shoppe on Mississippi. I remembered then how important scent was as I was holding jars to the faces of our visitors, asking them to make choices based off what they felt in their bodies. That was where I fell in love with Poplar bud, Vetiver, Lemon Balm, and Rose. Scent buried itself for a number of years, outside of my dabbling in mixing essential oils or ritualistic bath taking. In 2022, I was flattened by near daily chronic migraines, and ironically, scent journeyed back into my life at a breakneck speed. I don’t remember why or when I began deep diving, because I only remember a time not knowing fragrance, and the sudden and delicious hunger to know it completely. Despite what you might expect, scent is not a migraine trigger for me, and as finding the root of these migraines took me down a long and tedious path (and saying goodbye to sweet treats for the time being), the thing that now kept me grounded and engaged with a life that had dimmed to a soft grey, was fragrance. In May of last year, my beloved now-fiancee, Rae, and I visited Fumerie for the first time to find them a birthday scent (Imaginary Authors, Whispered Myths), and amidst having my hair blown back by how it felt to be immersed in scent as only Fumerie does, to smell the things I had only read about or listened to others talk about, but also, and most importantly, to develop my own feelings about these pieces of art, I was head over heels and had unknowingly begun a beautiful future here. Visiting Fumerie became my idea of a great day, but also, whispered back and forth between Rae and I and mentioned to anyone who would listen, the perfect dream of a work environment for me.
I am in my last year at Pacific Northwest College of Art, finishing a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a focus on recycled materials (trash!), poetry, sound, and soft sculpture. When I’m not geeking about olfactory nonsense or sniffing my way through my day, I am crafting, sculpting, sewing, writing, composing, arranging, reading, free boxing, playing my Switch or laughing loudly, especially if my dog Crow is around.
I am so excited to meet all the people just like me in this community, and I can’t wait to learn more from you and to share what I know back. To me, there is nothing more important than community, and I am so excited to continue to build that here.
With a big nose and an even bigger heart,
Q
(they/them)