The Last Notes Before the Door Closes
A Year-End Studio Report
Before the year ends, I like to take inventory — not in a business way, but in a what actually moved through my handsway. What I touched. What touched me back. What stayed. What didn’t.
This year, I made a lot. Some of it quietly. Some of it in public. Some of it only for myself.
In January, I made ParisParis — collages born from walking, collecting, listening, and paying attention while moving through Paris. Paper became a way to remember before memory could blur things. Receipts, fragments, images, thoughts — all layered, all imperfect, all honest.
I created fourteen scent stories, each one a narrative waiting to be translated into liquid and air. I took them as far as the lab, knowing that not everything needs to arrive all at once.
I photographed close to two hundred new faces, building a living archive of portraits. Out of that came the denim series — bodies swallowed by giant jeans — an idea about belonging, scale, inheritance, and the strange comfort of things that don’t quite fit.
I released three incenses:
No. 1 — rose and clove
No. 2 — geranium and slate
No. 3 — tomato leaf and frankincense
I made a soap — No. 39, Garden Hose — because sometimes nostalgia smells like rubber, sun, water, and your uncle’s backyard. Because sometimes that’s enough.
I brought my clowns back. I started writing them into a cabaret. Then into a children’s book. I let absurdity sit next to tenderness again.
I opened my studio — not as a room, but as an idea. A place to participate. To collect. To follow along. To be inside the process, not just the result.
I made new collages. I tested new painting techniques. I completed ten paintings, including one made with pigment created from seashells collected on family vacations — ground down, transformed, and returned as memory made physical.
Those are the facts. The objects. The proof.
But what surprised me most this year was this:
everything I want to make already exists inside my head.
The work wasn’t about inventing ideas — it was about finding the right medium to let them out. Journaling. Storytelling. Switching materials. Moving sideways instead of forward. Learning new languages just to say the same truth more clearly.
What Shifted
I stopped caring — or I’m learning to stop caring — about how my work is interpreted. Some people won’t like it. Some people will love it too much. Both are fine.
I started trusting my gut more. Letting intuition lead before explanation. Creating with less noise around me.
My work got slower and faster. Faster in output. Slower in thinking. More deliberate. More intentional.
It got louder in its reach — I want more people inside it now — but more domestic in its source. Familiar things rendered strange. Relatable ideas that take a second to recognize. Absurdity doing the work that literalness never could.
An Unofficial Trend Report
(Observed from the sidewalk, the studio floor, and the kitchen table)
I keep seeing texture. Velvet. High gloss. Rust. Tarnish. Wear. The evidence of time doing its job.
Deep colors. Acidic neons that look like they’ve aged badly — in a good way. Patterns getting bolder. Repetition everywhere.
I’m bored of safety. Bored of everything trying to be likable. Bored of ath-leisure and neutrality disguised as taste. Everyone acting the same. Wanting the same. Dressing the same.
“Basic” feels very in right now.
Luxury, to me, has nothing to do with price and everything to do with attention.
A croissant made by someone who’s spent a lifetime learning how to make it — that’s luxury. Even if it costs less than a dollar. You’re buying knowledge, repetition, failure, patience, inheritance.
This applies to everything.
I notice the hand now more than ever. The brushstroke. The imperfect stitch. The slight error that proves someone was there. Craftsmanship is visible if you’re willing to slow down enough to see it.
Forecasts (Read Between the Lines)
Next isn’t about newness.
It’s about refinement disguised as nostalgia.
Domestic fabrics will matter. Worn ones. Velvet will return — not precious, but lived-in. Fashion will soften without becoming weak.
Objects will feel familiar before you understand why. Memory will do more work than explanation.
The most interesting work will feel personal but speak collectively. It will invite participation instead of observation.
And the artists worth watching won’t rush to show you everything at once.
I’m stepping into the next year paying closer attention. To what’s already on the table. To what’s already in the room. To what’s already been said — just not yet heard.
It’s all there.
You just have to listen.
Or smell.
Or look.
Happy New Year.
— Anthony Amadeo and The Journal