On a late winter morning, brisk but streaked with sun, candlemaker Brennan Michael introducing me to a world of oils steamed and distilled from naturally occurring flora, fauna, and otherwise. For Brennan, these things can create entire palettes of scents, built on a balance of varied axises that remind me of a kinetic mobile hanging delicately in the air.  In this world of balance, various scales of richness and depth pull against others representing a range of textures, all counterbalanced by degrees of sweet and dry.       

We spend the most time talking excitedly about a shared obsession: the idea that we all collect our own unique experiences of the world, and that maybe our one job on this earth is just to share those experiences through beautiful things that others want to be a part of. For Brennan, those experiences become memories, and scents makes for a beautiful medium through which to share these meaningful moments. He went on to tell me about a particular kind of musk that's a part of all his fragrances, one he remembers from a Canadian childhood near the woods. Sitting in a Swedish coffee shop, the cardamom buns inspire reminiscence of a recent trip to Stockholm; we talk about where we're going next and maybe what we'll find out about ourselves once we're there. 

www.brennanmichael.com