Preface: Nocturne in the Garden

Tomorrow evening, the garden will hold three paintings suspended between trees. Three paintings made as synesthetic responses to the three incense scents I’ve been developing under amadeo amadeo. Color becoming aroma. Texture becoming memory. Smoke becoming image.

Tonight, though, the house is quiet.

The week has been long in the best way possible. Stretching canvas. Mixing paint. Burning incense late into the night while trying to understand how scent could translate into surface. Hanging lights in the backyard. Thinking about silver trays and flowers and the way guests might move through the garden tomorrow once the sun disappears.

I felt like I needed a drink that could slow everything down for a moment.

I cut open a young green coconut and poured the water over a tall glass of ice. Added gin. Three dashes of patchouli bitters. Finished with a thick lemon peel resting over the top.

It tasted strange at first. Fresh and green from the coconut water, sharp and botanical from the gin, then suddenly earthy and dark from the patchouli bitters. The lemon lifted everything back upward. Somehow it all worked together in a way that felt oddly familiar and completely new at the same time.

I think that’s what I’ve been chasing lately.

Juxtapositions that shouldn’t make sense but somehow become balanced. Smoke and flowers. Brutalism and softness. Silver and dirt. A backyard becoming a gallery for one evening.

Now I’m sitting here writing this while drinking a warm cup of lapsang souchong. The room smells like smoke, citrus peel, tea leaves, patchouli, and drying paint. Incense still lingers faintly in the background from earlier tonight.

Everything today has revolved around flavor and scent. Not just tasting things, but experiencing atmosphere through them.

Tomorrow, people will arrive to see paintings. But more importantly, I hope they feel something while moving through the garden. I want the evening to feel suspended for a moment in time. Like walking into a still life painting that’s quietly breathing.

For now, though, the lights are off, the tea is still warm, and I’m trying to enjoy the calm before Nocturne in the Garden begins.