Feeling the need for a playful media, I cooked up a few batches of homemade play dough. To kick things up a notch, I intertwined scent into it. I dug through my herbs and spices and pulled out what I had an excess of. The natural smells had powerful emotional potential that was very different from the material marketed to children.

This is not your child’s play dough. The combined stimuli of smell and touch are evocative and have the power to produce deep emotion.

The aromatic stimuli enriched my experience by transporting me to a place of deeply felt meaning. My mind flooded with memories as I squished and formed the dough. In no time, I found myself jaunting down memory lane.

The woody smell of the dough brought back a childhood memory of day trips to Beltzville State Park. In turn, I felt thankful for the recreational times we spent together in the great outdoors.

“Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived… Even as I think of smells, my nose is full of scents that start awake sweet memories of summers gone and ripening fields far away.”

Helen Keller

My scene was constructed from dough mixed with the following:

• Green lake – cumin
• Neutral sand – ground mustard
• Yellow pines – curry
• Brown clearing – ground cloves

Of course, as a child of the ’70s, my childhood memories often include artificial smells, too – the Jean Naté After Bath Splash on my mother’s dresser, the Love’s Baby Soft on my sisters’, the Coppertone Suntan Oil in my beach bag… (Nostalgic memories evoked by odor vary depending on the olfactory experiences of different generations.) What smells or odors remind you of your childhood?

Sculpture allows us to recreate those memories.

Handling, manipulating, and sculpting clay taps into touch, a primary mode of communication and expression. Working with clay involves an intense and powerful tactile experience and haptic involvement. Because of this, it also is linked to actual past memories and feelings that were encoded through touch and movement.

As I formed the miniature scene, I lovingly recalled my father in his beach chair, with his brimmed hat shielding his eyes from the blazing sun, my mother grilling hot dogs under the shade of the trees, my siblings and I cooling off in the lake. When I felt ready, I turned the dough back into lumps and stored them for another time.

Art & Wellness Challenge

Engage in a meaningful experience of creating something out of clay. Infuse the clay with a scent, if you desire.

Begin by lightly touching the an unformed chunk of clay, leaving the imprint of your fingers. Become absorbed in your ability to transform and make an impact. Squeeze it, smash it, punch it, roll it, cut it, treat it tenderly… whatever you feel you need to do. Clay can be done and undone over and over again. Take note of your emotional engagement.

When you settle on your final image, bring it to life by speaking to it. Listen for its response. What does it have to say to you?

Finally, if you wish, share a photo of your sculpture via email at chris@chrisingleheart.com or via message on Facebook at facebook.com/chrissingleheart. Share any significant reflection. For example, does your image stand for yourself? Is it someone or something you lost? Did it evoke a memory, a thought, a fantasy, a conflict? I shall respect and hold confidential your communication with me, and will reply.

The Fine Print

Participation in this and any Art and Wellness Challenge is on a voluntary basis and at your own risk.

Resources

Homemade Herb and Spice Play Dough

Olfactory Art and Science Research

More about odor-cued memories, known as the Proust phenomenon