Phantom smells. Every so often I am awoken by a smell that doesn’t exist. Usually I can tell myself it’s nothing. No-one is likely to be making toast at 3am. Almost always incorporated into my dreams the smell wakes me up. Sometimes, though, I may have hyperosmia —like when a neighbor is having a cigarette and our windows show how leaky they are. I wake up and the smell is real, just real subtle. I astound my family by declaring a rotting citrus fruit from long distances on a regular basis. I can’t imagine how anyone can’t smell that.

Artists can be sensitive and hyperaware. It’s the paying attention that’s the job. That was the point of the banana duct taped to the wall, right? Because an artist is an artist no matter what she does, what she does is art. It doesn’t matter what senses we use. We notice. We take note. We process. We make. Occasionally, we just tape.

In any case, smell is so evocative and triggers all kinds of associations. It seems like a key to the subconscious or memory or deep feeling. Did you smell the banana on the wall? Last night, I awoke thinking I smelled gas, not propane, dog gas.

Trying to sleep through, my slumber mind could not conjecture a good reason that wasn’t awful. I had to find out for myself…and it was.

It was a careful, sleepy labor in hopes that the smell would abate enough to allow a little more sleeping for the night. I would not consider dog cleanup to be my art, but I am an artist, so am I wrong? One thing I won’t question—I am glad my dogs’s day jobs are more akin to clowns than painters, because there is such a thing as bad painting. It may be art but….it stinks!

Madeline Fan

Phantosmia