An Abundant Amount of A
A week spent inside the Anthony Amadeo archive, editing Ahmad, Adam, Andres, Andreas, Ali, Aja, Adrian—and an almost absurd number of additional A’s.
A week spent inside the Anthony Amadeo archive, editing Ahmad, Adam, Andres, Andreas, Ali, Aja, Adrian—and an almost absurd number of additional A’s.
After writing about the subtle differences between two photographs taken only a few frames apart, I kept editing.
And editing.
And editing.
The deeper I went into my old shoots, the more I began to realize the sheer number of people I have photographed. Faces, bodies, gestures, personalities, passing expressions, accidental movements and entire little worlds have accumulated inside my archive. Some shoots I remember perfectly. Others return to me one frame at a time.
In an attempt to give this enormous archive some kind of order, I decided to begin with something simple: the alphabet.
More specifically, the letter A.
Surely, I thought, I could spend a few days going through the models whose names begin with A, finish the group and then continue on to B.
That was adorable.
One full week later, I was still inside the A’s.
Ahmad. Adam S. Andres. Andreas. Ali. Aja. Adrian J. Adam R. Adam M. Arthur. Abneudy. Aaron M. Aidan. Amaury. Antonio C. Aaron B. Andrew. Airon. Ahseem. Adrian A. Ace. Austin. Antonio P. And somehow, Aaron M. again.
An abundant amount of A names.
Each name opened another folder, another shoot and another version of myself as a photographer. Different apartments. Different cities. Different windows. Different qualities of light. Different ideas of beauty that I was exploring at the time.
Some portraits immediately told me what they needed. Others were more ambiguous. A slight adjustment to the grey scale could make someone appear distant or inviting. A darker crop could turn an ordinary glance into something almost cinematic. An image I had ignored years ago could suddenly feel more alive than the one I originally selected.
The archive was not asking me to simply clean it up. It was asking me to reconsider it.
A Week Consumed by A
After several days, the letter began following me outside of the computer.
Anthony Amadeo.
amadeo amadeo.
The abundance of the archive.
The apples I was eating while editing.
I started noticing A’s everywhere, as though the letter had appointed itself the creative director of my week. It appeared in names, signs, sentences and thoughts. Every activity seemed to arrive already alliterated.
I began assembling a list of my favorite A words—the ones that feel connected to the way I make photographs and art:
Abundant. Abstract. Accord. Aesthetic. Ambiguous. Audacious. Authentic. Accentuated.
They began to sound less like vocabulary words and more like instructions.
Be abundant with ideas.
Allow an image to remain ambiguous.
Make something audacious.
Accentuate what makes a person impossible to overlook.
Aim for authenticity, even when the photograph itself is a complete invention.
Eventually, I tried to create an A-based tongue twister. My answer to “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” became something like:
amadeo amadeo asked an audacious assembly of A-named artists about angles, attitude and accidental allure.
It does not become easier to say with practice.
An Assembly of Individuals
What became most apparent while moving through these portraits was that the alphabet might organize the folders, but it cannot organize the people.
The A’s have very little in common beyond the first letter of their names and the fact that, at some point, they stood in front of my camera.
One person might offer a quiet, almost imperceptible shift in expression. Another might arrive with enough energy to alter the entire direction of the shoot. Some faces invite closeness. Others become more interesting when they remain slightly inaccessible. Some people understand a strange direction immediately. Others need to arrive at it through conversation, movement, laughter or accident.
That exchange is always part of the photograph.
The finished portrait may look still, but making it rarely is. There is talking, waiting, adjusting, reconsidering and occasionally abandoning the original idea altogether. There are the conscious directions I give and the subconscious ones the model somehow understands before I have properly explained them.
Editing all these A’s together made the archive feel less like a storage system and more like an enormous ongoing conversation.
Each portrait answers something the previous portrait asked.
Advantageous Ab-Libbing
I wanted this week to feel productive. I wanted to complete the A’s, move on to the B’s and watch the archive fall obediently into place.
Instead, the letter A expanded until it consumed the entire week.
And perhaps that was the actual assignment.
I am trying to anticipate what might come from getting all this work done: rediscovered photographs, new articles, new opportunities, a more complete understanding of what I have made and perhaps even a clearer idea of what I want to make next.
At the same time, I am learning to become more accepting of the ad-libbing of activity that comes my way.
A day begins with a plan. Then an image catches my attention. That image leads to another folder. The folder recalls a person, a place or an unfinished idea. Suddenly the intended task has transformed into something else entirely.
It can feel like distraction, but sometimes it is discovery.
This was an awesome and unexpectedly advantageous week—an alphabetical excavation through years of faces, gestures and fleeting moments. I still have not finished editing every A, but I have accepted that abundance rarely arrives neatly organized.
For now, A is for archive.
A is for attention.
A is for all the people who have allowed me to photograph them.
And somewhere inside the hard drive, the letter B is already becoming impatient.
Nocturne in the Garden
There are certain evenings that do not feel like they are happening in real time. They feel arranged. Suspended. As if every object, scent, sound, and gesture has been placed inside a small spell.
The first gathering by amadeo amadeo
There are certain evenings that do not feel like they are happening in real time. They feel arranged. Suspended. As if every object, scent, sound, and gesture has been placed inside a small spell.
Nocturne in the Garden was the first gathering by amadeo amadeo created to bring together art, scent, curation, food, drink, and atmosphere. A small evening in the backyard, surrounded by trees, spring growth, and soft green light, became a way to show what the brand is slowly becoming: not only a collection of objects, but a world built through feeling.
The idea was simple at first. Three paintings. Three incense scents. One garden.
But simplicity, when treated carefully, can become its own kind of fantasy.
The three paintings were placed throughout the lawn and trees as if they had grown there. Each one measured nearly eight feet long and only twelve inches high, a strange and narrow proportion that made them feel less like traditional paintings and more like fragments, relics, banners, or architectural remains. They leaned into the landscape, slipped between trunks, and stretched across the grass with the quiet confidence of something planted there long before anyone arrived.
Each painting was created as a synesthetic translation of one of the three house incense scents of amadeo amadeo: Rose and Clove, Geranium and Slate, and Frankincense and Tomato Leaf.
I wanted to understand what these scents might look like if they stopped being smoke and became color. What does rose become when it is not a flower, but a surface? What does clove look like when it darkens the edge of a painting? Can geranium become green without becoming literal? Can slate become texture? Can tomato leaf turn into something sharp, wet, and alive? Can frankincense stretch itself into a pale, sacred haze?
The paintings became answers without needing to explain themselves.
Near each painting, its corresponding incense burned in the grass. The smoke moved differently depending on the air, sometimes rising straight upward, sometimes bending into the trees, sometimes disappearing entirely. The paintings were not just being viewed. They were being scented. The lawn became a kind of open-air gallery where the work could be seen, smelled, and walked around. It was not about separating the senses. It was about letting them interrupt each other.
That is where amadeo amadeo feels most alive.
A visual object does not have to remain only visual. A scent does not have to stay invisible. Food can become sculpture. A drink can become an object. A backyard can become a stage. Domestic life can go beautifully rogue.
For the evening, I wanted the food and cocktail to feel just as considered as the paintings. Not catering. Not a board. Not a drink station. Something closer to a still life that had started misbehaving.
The table was built around a vintage silver platter that looked as if it had been frozen mid-collapse. It was tilted, spilling outward, as though it had just knocked itself over and released everything it had been holding. A moka pot lay overturned. Mortadella was folded in pale, soft layers like fabric. There were smelly cheeses, soft cheeses, blue-veined cheeses, crackers, smoked oysters, masago, whole fruits, vegetables, olives, grapes, and small edible interruptions everywhere.
It was decadent, but not polished. Domestic, but not obedient.
The platter became a cornucopia in the middle of losing control. Something inherited and ornate, suddenly caught in the act of falling apart. The fun of making it was in ignoring the usual rules of a charcuterie board. There are always rules for how something should be done: what belongs next to what, what is too much, what is too strange, what is not proper. But the more interesting part of creating anything is knowing when to break the rules so the thing can start speaking in your own language.
By the end of the night, the board had changed completely. It had been picked at, broken apart, rearranged by hands, appetite, conversation, and curiosity. That was part of the work too. It became less pristine and more alive the longer people gathered around it.
The cocktail followed the same logic. A dirty martini, but made surreal.
Instead of serving it as a liquid in a glass, I made a gelatin version of a classic dirty martini. A preserved martini. A cube. An olive suspended inside. Something familiar made slightly strange. It was cold, briny, absurd, elegant, and a little wrong in the best way. A cocktail turned into a relic. A martini that could be held, cut, looked at, and eaten.
That small shift—from drink to object—felt important. It turned hospitality into art direction.
Throughout the evening, there was the smell of incense, grass, cheese, smoke, brine, fruit, and spring air. The paintings lived between the trees. The food slowly collapsed into enjoyment. The martini became gelatin. The silver reflected everything. Nothing needed to be too loudly announced. The point was to let people discover.
That is what I want amadeo amadeo to be known for: the creation of moments that alter the senses and open a small door into fantasy, curiosity, and wonder. Not fantasy as escape, but fantasy as attention. A reminder that there is so much to see, taste, smell, arrange, touch, and witness if we refuse to take ordinary things for granted.
A backyard can become a gallery.
A painting can become scent.
An incense can become color.
A cheese board can become a domestic collapse.
A martini can become a cube.
A spring evening can become a ritual.
Nocturne in the Garden was the first gathering of this kind for amadeo amadeo, but it does not feel like it should be the last. It felt like the beginning of a language. A way to gather people not only around objects, but around atmosphere. Around taste. Around storytelling. Around the pleasure of seeing something familiar become unfamiliar again.
The evening brought together many of the things that amadeo amadeo is built from: creative direction, art direction, scent, painting, food, graphic design, curation, event planning, and culture. All of it working toward one feeling. One world.
And for one night, that world existed in the garden.
Paintings among trees.
Incense in the grass.
Silver on the table.
Smoke in the air.
A little fantasy, served cold.
Preface: Nocturne in the Garden
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.
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.
A Guide to Moving Along the River (Without Knowing Where You’re Going)
It usually starts with coffee.
Or a question.
Or someone asking you if you are something you are not.
Part I
There is a way to move through a place without deciding where you are going.
It usually starts with coffee.
Or a question.
Or someone asking you if you are something you are not.
From there, it becomes difficult to stop.
You follow a road.
The road follows a river.
The river does not ask you anything, but it keeps offering.
A chair.
A jacket.
A painting you cannot take with you.
And before you realize it, you are no longer looking for anything specific—
you are just responding.
We started somewhere near the river without saying that we were following it.
Avon, Connecticut. A coffee shop that roasts its beans in-house—The Coffee Trade—the kind of place where the air is already thick before you even order. The smell of roasting beans sits low and constant, like something alive in the room. You don’t need to ask what they do there. You can smell it before you speak.
We ordered coffee.
“Are you guys musicians?”
There was a pause. A small laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it felt accurate in a way that didn’t need correcting.
We weren’t.
But we didn’t say that.
We sat in the garden and let that question linger between us, turning it over like something we had just picked up off a shelf. There’s a moment when you realize that people are seeing something in you that you didn’t intentionally present. Or maybe you did, without knowing.
That was the first shift.
If you continue down the road long enough, something will appear.
A Goodwill.
A small thrift store.
Something that feels like it wasn’t meant to be a stop, but becomes one anyway.
We went in without expectation.
I was looking for textiles—something that could become something else. Curtains that weren’t meant to be worn. Table linens that had already lived one life. Materials for Chiddu ca tinemu. The things that we keep, even when we don’t know why yet.
We left with sheer curtains. Tablecloths. Fabric that held memory in its weight.
At the next stop, Nikko found a jacket.
A perfectly worn brown leather bomber—soft in the way that only time can make something soft. He put it on in the middle of the store. The women behind the counter watched, smiling, approving, as if they had been waiting for someone to come in and take it home.
There’s a moment when clothing stops being clothing and becomes a role.
Before the jacket: cords, a hoodie, something quiet.
After the jacket: something else entirely.
We didn’t say it out loud, but it was understood.
We were becoming more visible.
The road kept moving and so did we.
The river stayed just within reach—sometimes hidden, sometimes running parallel like a second thought. The Farmington River doesn’t demand your attention, but if you notice it once, you keep looking for it again.
We ended up in Collinsville.
An antique mall—Collinsville Antique Mall—the kind of place where time folds in on itself. Every booth a different version of someone else’s past, arranged for you to walk through.
This is where things slow down.
You start to notice details:
a brown suede rocking chair worn into itself
a tray of colorful vintage flatware, each piece slightly off from the next
a wood panel with an inlaid clown, quietly plucking the petals from a flower
The clown stayed with me longer than I expected.
Not loud. Not exaggerated. Just there.
Doing something repetitive. Waiting.
There was a painting too. Large. Oil. Flowers that felt almost too alive for the room they were in.
I wanted it.
Not in the way you want something decorative—but in the way you want something that feels like it already belongs to you.
I took a photo instead.
Some things you don’t take.
Some things you leave so they can keep existing where they are.
We walked out with an embroidered tablecloth. Flowers stitched into it carefully, deliberately. Something that would become something else later.
Again—collection, but not for keeping.
Collection for transformation.
We went home, but not really.
The body returned, but the momentum didn’t.
The fabrics came out immediately—laid across surfaces, held up to light, pulled, folded, tested. I wanted to see how they moved before they became anything permanent. There’s a moment before creation where everything is still possible, and it’s almost better to stay there.
That feeling doesn’t last long.
It turned into something else quickly—
paintings, collages, sewing.
An urgency.
The kind where you feel like if you don’t make something now, it might disappear.
At some point, the conversation shifted.
What is art?
What makes someone an artist?
Is there a difference between being creative and being an artist, or is that something we’ve decided to separate?
There wasn’t an answer.
There still isn’t.
It’s the kind of question that doesn’t resolve—it just expands.
The next day, we followed the same instinct.
No plan. Just direction.
We decided to go further down the river.
Chester, Connecticut—Chester—a town that doesn’t feel real when you first drive into it. The buildings sit too perfectly. The street feels staged. Like something built for a film, but left there after production ended.
We parked near a cemetery.
And again—coffee.
Simons Marketplace—espresso, cinnamon buns, a window seat facing Main Street. The kind of place where you sit and watch people move, and for a moment, you feel like you’re outside of it all.
Then back into it.
Cheshire Vintage—a perfectly curated shop. We spoke with one of the owners for a while. There’s something different about small towns like this. The conversations last longer. The recommendations matter more.
She sent us a few doors down.
Dina Varano Gallery—crystals, jewelry, objects that feel like they hold energy whether you believe in that or not.
There was a pattern forming.
We weren’t finding places.
We were being sent to them.
At some point, we noticed a small house.
White picket fence. Eyebrow dormer. Slightly elevated from the street as if it needed to be approached with intention.
We walked up.
There are moments where you don’t ask questions—you just follow the pull.
Next door, a door was open.
Leif Nilsson Spring Street Studio and Gallery.
We walked in.
Paintings filled the space. Impressionist, but not distant—alive in a way that made you feel like you had stepped into them rather than looking at them.
And then you realize:
the person standing there is the one who made them.
Leif.
The conversation started easily and didn’t feel like it needed to end. Stories about painting. About sailing. About working from a boat. About the house itself—once a hotel in the 1800s, now something else entirely.
We learned that the small studio we noticed outside was his too.
That everything we had just walked into was part of a larger life we hadn’t known existed ten minutes before.
At one point, I stepped back and saw Nikko standing in front of a long painting, looking up at it.
Still.
There are moments when someone becomes part of a scene without realizing it.
I took a photo.
Nikko Amadeo inside Leif Nilsson’s gallery
Not many—just enough to remember that it happened.
Before we left, he mentioned something casually.
An art show.
The next day.
We should come by.
We said we would.
Or maybe we said we might.
We left Chester and drove to New Haven.
The shift was immediate.
The Owl Shop—dark wood, leather chairs, amber lights hanging low over the bar. The kind of place that exists outside of time, or at least outside of whatever time you were in before you walked in.
We sat down.
Picked cigars.
Ordered beers.
I had brought fragrance with me—something I had been thinking about all day without knowing why.
Lily of the valley.
And Muskara Aquilaria from Fueguia 1833.
We layered it into the room without asking permission.
The sweetness cut through the smoke.
The smoke settled back into it.
For a moment, the air felt constructed.
Not accidental.
We sat there, surrounded by low conversation, glass, wood, and heat, and returned to the same questions.
What is art?
What makes someone an artist?
Is it making something?
Or is it seeing something differently?
I don’t know when the conversation stopped and just became part of the atmosphere.
It felt like we had stepped into another version of the day.
Or another version of ourselves.
At some point, we left.
Not because anything ended, but because something was continuing somewhere else.
We talked about Chester the entire way back.
About Leif.
About the studio.
About the fact that we could go back the next day.
We said it casually, but it didn’t feel casual.
Some places open something.
Some people do too.
We said we might go back.
And for some reason, that felt like the most important decision we had made all weekend.
Studio Rituals: Flowers on the Desk
Yesterday I brought something simple into the studio—flowers.
It had been a while since I picked up flowers just to place in a vase for myself. No reason other than wanting a little life in the room. I found a few calla lilies and some chamomile and brought them back to the studio to arrange.
Yesterday I brought something simple into the studio—flowers.
It had been a while since I picked up flowers just to place in a vase for myself. No reason other than wanting a little life in the room. I found a few calla lilies and some chamomile and brought them back to the studio to arrange.
What I loved most was how naturally they worked together. Both sat in the same quiet palette of creams and soft yellows, but their textures couldn’t have been more different. The calla lilies stood tall and sculptural—almost architectural—while the chamomile scattered little sun-like blooms around them. Smooth against delicate. Structure against softness.
The juxtaposition made the arrangement feel alive.
While arranging them I even thought about adding a few sprigs of parsley as a green filler—something humble and unexpected—to give the bouquet another layer of texture. I’ve always loved playing with contrast when arranging flowers. Different shapes, different densities, different personalities all sharing the same space.
Now the arrangement sits on my desk in the studio.
The blooms quietly bring signs of spring with them, even if the season hasn’t fully arrived yet. It changes the room in a small but noticeable way. A little warmth. A little softness. A reminder that life outside is beginning to wake up again.
At one point I stopped working and photographed one of the calla lilies. Just a simple portrait. A way to keep the flower immortal for a moment before time inevitably takes it. The photographs below are from that small pause in the day.
What I love most about keeping flowers around is watching them change. Every day the arrangement shifts slightly—blooms opening, stems leaning, petals softening, eventually wilting. It’s a tiny living sculpture that evolves quietly in the corner of the studio.
It’s also a reminder.
Beautiful things are often here for only a short time.
And that’s exactly why we should enjoy them while they’re here.
Red, Mirrors, and Watermelon
Not dramatic. Not catastrophic. Just a shedding that happens quietly while you’re still going about your days. I’ve been walking through this one with heightened senses — as if everything is slightly louder, brighter, more symbolic than usual.
Pain can do that. It sharpens color.
Some weeks feel like molting.
Not dramatic. Not catastrophic. Just a shedding that happens quietly while you’re still going about your days. I’ve been walking through this one with heightened senses — as if everything is slightly louder, brighter, more symbolic than usual.
Pain can do that. It sharpens color.
Red Everywhere
Lunar New Year unfolded in Chinatown like a fever dream in the best way.
Red poured down the streets. Gold flashed from storefronts. Drums pounded so hard it felt like the pavement had a heartbeat. Lion dancers — often called dragons, but technically lions — went door to door blessing businesses for the year ahead. They bowed. They blinked. They snapped their jaws open and shut, playful and fierce at once.
The ritual is ancient. It calls in prosperity. It wards off bad spirits. It invites luck in through the front door.
Children carried tanghulu — fruit skewered on sticks and dipped in melted sugar, hardened into glass. The fruit glowed like jewels. Hawthorn berries sealed in sweetness. Sticky and shining.
Confetti stuck to the bottoms of shoes. Cymbals clashed. The dragon undulated down the street — long, embroidered, shimmering — powered by many bodies moving as one.
It felt like collective optimism.
I stood there thinking: yes. Let’s try that. Let’s try optimism again.
Entering the Void (On Purpose)
I saw Anish Kapoor at Lisson Gallery and walked straight into a mirror that swallowed me.
His surfaces bend reality until your sense of proportion dissolves. One piece curved inward with a severity that almost nodded to Richard Serra — heavy, minimal — but Kapoor’s mirrored voids do something stranger. They erase edges. They destabilize your footing.
You step closer and your reflection stretches, fragments, disappears.
It felt like entering a dimension without friction. A quiet void. A pause in the noise.
There is something deeply comforting about distortion. It reminds you that perception is flexible. That what feels fixed might not be.
I stayed in that calm for a long time.
The Moka Pot and Repetition
Back home, I’ve been drawing my moka pot over and over again.
Line. Line. Line.
No erasing. No fixing. Just repetition.
The moka pot is all pressure and release. Water heated. Steam forced upward. Something bitter turned warm.
Drawing it feels like holding something steady while everything else rearranges itself. The repetition quiets the static. It’s almost funny how something so small can anchor a day.
If you draw something enough times, it starts to feel like prayer.
Watching From the Periphery
Fashion Week unfolded like theater from a slight distance.
Khaite still understands tension.
Diotima feels intentional and exact.
Ralph Lauren remains cinematic — a master of atmosphere.
Marc Jacobs plays with proportion like it’s a joke only he understands.
And Tory Burch — something fresh there. A subtle shift over the last few seasons. Cleaner. Sharper. Less eager.
It’s interesting to watch from a different vantage point. Less frenzy. More observation.
Watermelon, Metal, Oud
I finally stopped into Naked Ghosts — a perfumery that feels less like retail and more like conversation.
We talked about scent as sculpture. As distortion. As memory.
One fragrance — Strinking by Rich Mess — opened with shockingly ripe watermelon. Wet. Metallic. Almost too bright. It lingered longer than expected, then melted into something ambery and woody, still whispering fruit.
I keep imagining layering it over something dark. Dirty oud underneath bright sugar-water fruit.
Sweet over smoke. Youth over age. Fresh over ancient.
Juxtaposition again.
Blossoms in Dirty Snow
This week has felt like blossoms pushing through snow that hasn’t fully melted yet.
Things are rough. My body and mind are not entirely aligned. Healing feels slow. But there have been flashes — red confetti, mirrored voids, sugar fruit, coffee steam — that remind me how alive things still are.
You can feel unwell and grateful at the same time.
You can hurt and still notice beauty.
You can reset without announcing it.
For now, I am drawing small objects. Watching lions bless storefronts. Standing inside mirrors. Plotting the year quietly. Sending applications into the distance. Letting sweetness sit over something darker.
Molting.
Let’s see what emerges.
-Anthony Amadeo
Collection 1 — Look 2
Suddenly I was a child again, watching my family make hundreds and hundreds of cookies for special occasions. Every surface of the house covered—tables, counters, chairs—lined with trays cooling before being packed into tins. Cookie tins collected over decades. Tins passed from hand to hand. Picked up by family. Dropped off at gatherings. Always meant to be shared.
This dress began as a tablecloth.
Not a pristine one—one that had lived.
One that had been folded and unfolded, washed and stained, pulled from drawers for holidays and ordinary Sundays alike. A tablecloth that knew hands, heat, crumbs, and time.
When I reinterpreted it into a maxi dress with a turtleneck, I wanted to keep all of that history intact. The marks stayed. The wear stayed. The fabric wasn’t cleaned of its past—it was elevated by it.
As I steamed the dress for the first time, something unexpected happened.
The smell came back.
Steam mixed with almond paste, flour, powdered sugar. That unmistakable scent of Italian cookies—especially the S cookies—cooling on the table, fresh from the oven. Clean fabric and warm sugar layered together. It stopped me in my tracks.
Suddenly I was a child again, watching my family make hundreds and hundreds of cookies for special occasions. Every surface of the house covered—tables, counters, chairs—lined with trays cooling before being packed into tins. Cookie tins collected over decades. Tins passed from hand to hand. Picked up by family. Dropped off at gatherings. Always meant to be shared.
What stayed with me most wasn’t just the smell, but the process.
The repetition.
The patience.
The quiet perfection of doing something the exact same way generation after generation.
The recipes were written on distressed, handwritten note cards—soft at the corners from years of use. The proportions were never small. No recipe ever made just a dozen cookies. Everything was measured for abundance. Enough for everyone. Enough so you could still sneak a few straight off the tray while they were cooling.
That’s what this dress represents to me.
Generations of shared knowledge.
Love passed through hands.
Practice, patience, and care repeated until it becomes instinct.
I attached my collection of buttons—ones I’ve been gathering for nearly fifteen years—like a timeline running down the back. Each button different. Each one chosen. Each one holding its own quiet history.
This garment was hand sewn slowly, deliberately, with the same kind of attention I watched growing up in kitchens filled with heat and laughter and flour-dusted hands.
Even without an abundance of material things, there is always an abundance of love.
And when love is practiced—over and over again—it becomes something you can feel, wear, and share.
This is Collection 1, Look 2.
A dress made from memory.
A dress made to hold generations.
Collection 1: Chiddu ca tinemu
Collection 1, Chiddu ca tinemu, has existed long before it had a name—long before it had an image, a look number, or a reason to be introduced. It lived first in memory, in gesture, in domestic spaces that shaped the way glamour was understood before it was ever worn.
Collection 1: Chiddu ca tinemu
Some collections arrive loudly.
This one has been waiting.
Collection 1, Chiddu ca tinemu, has existed long before it had a name—long before it had an image, a look number, or a reason to be introduced. It lived first in memory, in gesture, in domestic spaces that shaped the way glamour was understood before it was ever worn.
Look 1 is the quiet beginning. Or rather, the moment when something already in motion allows itself to be seen.
The skirt—hand-sewn, intuitively patterned, repurposed from a vintage tablecloth—is the sole focus of this introduction. There is no distraction. No styling spectacle. Just the garment…
This collection is rooted in youth—not nostalgia, but aspiration. The kind that forms early, quietly, while sitting at kitchen tables and listening more than speaking. Watching great aunts and uncles move through their routines. Observing how they spoke about the future. How they made beauty out of what they had. How suburban life, when lived fully, could feel cinematic.
There was glamour there. Not imported, not purchased—constructed. Set hair, pressed linens, lipstick before errands. Domestic rituals elevated through care and intention. These women did not wait for a bigger life to arrive. They built one where they stood.
Chiddu ca tinemu is about that inheritance.
Every piece in the collection is made from repurposed domestic textiles—tablecloths, bed linens, table runners, lace, and unexpected household relics that carry history in their weave. These materials once lived in private spaces. Now they are reinterpreted into silhouettes that suggest women who are self-possessed, aspirational, and quietly commanding. Women who understand that intimacy and ambition are not opposites.
The garments are entirely hand sewn. The patterns arrived intuitively, guided by repetition, touch, and trust rather than rigid structure. Seams are visible. Decisions remain present. The hand is not erased. This is not about perfection—it is about presence.
As the collection unfolds, it will appear slowly, deliberately—through press, editorials, and continued documentation. Each reveal is meant to feel earned, not consumed.
This first look is not a statement.
It is a signal.
A reminder that glamour can live inside domesticity.
That heritage can be worn forward.
That aspiration often begins by watching the women who came before you and deciding, quietly, to go further.
Collection 1: Chiddu ca tinemu has been waiting.
Now, it begins to speak.
—
Closely tied to this collection is amadeo amadeo fragrance No. 37 — ECLOGUE, a scent drawn from the same domestic landscapes and private rituals. It will be stocked soon.
This is not the full picture.
It’s an opening.
Julian — In the Studio
Julian Barbarino - An artist in the portrait studio of Anthony Amadeo
Julian Barbarino - An artist in the portrait studio of Anthony Amadeo
AA: You’ve been a figure study model for a long time. Do you remember the first time you ever stepped into that role—what pulled you toward it, and what surprised you once you were in the room?
JB: Like it was yesterday. I was 18 years old and at the end of my freshman year in college. I had a friend, Derek, and he wanted to do some photographs for his portfolio which involved body painting and I jumped right in. I think it’s like many art models get into modeling, they pose for a friend and it evolves from that. A couple of months later, because of how flexible the schedule could be for a full time student, I modeled my first figure drawing course. I have to admit it was a little awkward because I was modeling for a professor who was still teaching me in some courses and at the same time I had friends taking the course. I was incredibly nervous for that class, but what really surprised me was how natural it all seemed, as if nobody really cared that their friend was naked in front of them and that after a minute ot two it was just fine, they were focused on drawing and I was just posing.
—
AA: Figure modeling teaches a very specific awareness of the body—balance, tension, weight, negative space. How do you think that experience changed the way you move through the world outside the studio?
JB: I think I am more aware of my surroundings. I have become even more observant than I was, and I can carry several conversations at once. That second one comes from listening to students speak while I’m posing, which can be dangerous for those who speak at an earshot of me. Personality wise I haven’t changed at all from in the last 12 years since I started modeling, I’m still the introverted guy that won’t really engage in large groups, which I’m told is a little weird since I don’t have any shyness from being nude in front of 30 people.
—
AA: Watching you move during the shoot felt different—more intentional, more sculptural. When you’re posing, are you thinking like a model, like an artist, or like a material being shaped?
JB: Definitely more intentional, and I am mostly thinking like an artist, not a model. I think it has to do with modeling so long in groups where artists are drawing you from every angle, it made me incredibly aware of what others see. For a while I felt pressure to make sure that no matter what pose I do, everyone gets to do something interesting, not just the ones in front of me. So now when I’m modeling I know what is going to be on the other side from every angle, which is great for drawing sessions in groups, the artists end the session very happy and not thinking “I wish I had a better angle.” On the other hand, I do have to say I think it sometimes affects the spontaneity a session could have and I feel like I could be more relaxed.
—
AA: Where are you from, and what was your early relationship to making things? Was creativity encouraged where you grew up, or something you carved out on your own?
JB: I’m from Puerto Rico, even though I was born in Brooklyn, my family moved to the island in the late 90s and I remained there until 2020. So essentially lived my entire childhood and the early stages of adulthood there. In my family creativity was encouraged, especially from my mother’s side of the family. I remember spending summers and breaks in the town of Ciales, which is a mountain town of Puerto Rico, drawing, coloring books and doing crafts with my cousins, aside from also playing most of the day outside. I think that type of space and upbringing also encouraged us to not spend all of our time on video games and TV, and choose toys that sparked creativity and challenges. My brother would get anything for building and working o electronics like remote control car kits at RadioShack, while I would get anything to paint, draw or legos to build kits or or just make stuff up.
—
AA: Did school play a big role in shaping you as an artist, or did your real education happen elsewhere—studios, streets, sketchbooks, late nights?
JB: School played a crucial role in becoming an artist, especially High school. I took an art class in 11th grade the first one in 4 years, the teacher, Mayra Aguilar, took a huge interest in me and pushed me because she saw my potential. She would give me assignments and even donated materials for me to do the assignments, she had me read books and research artists. She eventually introduced me to my art school by giving me a private tour of it while completing my senior year, which I appreciated because at the time I didn’t think Puerto Rico had a dedicated art school, and I was mostly ready to jump to any college with a science program, which I was good at. I fell in love with the arts, and I wouldn’t be where I am today or do the things I have done if it wasn’t for Mayra’s push.
AA: You work across multiple mediums. Which ones do you return to the most, and which ones do you turn to when you’re stuck or restless?
JB: The one i feel like I always come back to is drawing. It’s how I work out most of my concepts, and use to get an idea running visually. I don’t do it as much anymore as I have been working with abstract concepts for the past year, but I do always try to get in a sketch whenever I can to keep the motor running, so to speak.
—
AA: Is there a medium that feels like “home” to you—and another that feels like a risk every time you touch it?
JB: I don’t think I have a medium the feels like home other than drawing, even then I don’t do it as much as I used to. I think working across different mediums keeps me learning, and there’s something underneath that won’t let me be comfortable with one medium and then stick with it for a long period of time. I always have this urge to change it up when working on a new idea which for is the risk for me. Trying out a new medium, most of the time learning it on my own, and trying to marry a concept with it is so difficult because I’m always trying and it doesn’t always work. But that moment you find the right one, it just feels like everything is right.
AA: What keeps you creatively alive right now—what are you feeding yourself visually, mentally, emotionally?
JB: What always keeps me creating is learning. It can be learning about history, a new medium or just plain experimenting to gain knowledge. I feel like it keeps my mind going and helps me see the bigger picture of things, especially when it comes to working on my art because it is so personal. I think vulnerability is something a lot of people aren’t comfortable with, and my work is about vulnerability, from the art I create to posing for others in the nude. There’s a certain connection that is made when you are seen without any walls. Not everyone is capable of being comfortable in front of vulnerability, and that’s where i try to sit in because It’s ok to be vulnerable. I think there’s so much we can learn about ourselves when we are.
—
AA: When creativity slows down (because it always does), what helps you reconnect—movement, music, solitude, conversation, repetition?
JB: When it slows down, I tend to take a break, and it’s not like a day or two, for me it tends to be a few weeks before I create again. In that time I’ll focus on reading, listening to music, share time with friends or even playing video games, anything to unwind and relax. When I feel ready, I can come back fresh and with new eyes, because sometimes when you work on something for too long you can’t always see the mistakes you’re making, so breaks are good and it stops me from burning out or abandoning a project.
—
AA: How does using your body—posing, holding tension, staying still—inform your art-making afterward, if at all?
JB: It tells me a lot. Most of the time when I pose I am not really present, at least for classes where I hold long poses. I’m usually thinking of my projects, I use it as “library” time, I think in my head and art classes tend to be very quiet, because everyone is so focused on their own thing, so they’re good for that. Sometimes seeing people work or seeing and artist do something can sort of spark an idea, and when that happens I feel like it’s just the environment, being in a creative space can just move things along because of the energy.
AA:. If you had to describe your creative process using only three textures, what would they be?
JB: I think I could only choose two, rough and uneven. Most of the process can be so long, and experimenting so much to find that one thing can feel like a very long process, especially when there are so many failures, and other times if feels like you found the right thing and after making a few pieces you look at it and are not “feeling” it and then you start from scratch.
—
AA: Choose one color that feels like your body and one that feels like your mind. Why those?
JB: For my body I would probably go with yellow, to me it's a color that feels like openness and comfort in a very energetic way. I think my mind would be blue, there’s a depth to what goes on, but I feel there’s trust, honesty and a calm that’s present even in the craziest moments.
—
AA: Finish this sentence:
“When I’m making something with my hands, I’m really trying to…”
JB: “… be vulnerable and honest”
AA: What are you currently working on—or quietly dreaming about making next?
JB: Right now I am working on expanding my current series “Geographical Landscapes of the Mind” which is based on damaged Polaroids but in fiber. So I am working with cotton and acrylic yarn that is then tufted or hand punched onto a cotton fabric backing known as monk cloth. Visually I recreate the frame of a Polaroid instant film exposure and then intervened where the photograph would be with degrading colors or patterns that reflect a specific emotional state based on text I had written at nights during a severe episode of depression in 2024. Each one is me pouring my all into each piece and making something that I find beautiful out of a rough time.
AA: Where can people find your work, follow along, or step into your world?
JB: Well that one is easy, you can find me in pretty much all socials under @JulianBarbarino, but Instagram is where I am active the most. Also my website julianbarbarino.com has pretty much everything I have ever done under my archive.
Mason Williams
By the end of a year, especially one packed with ideas, projects, scents, sketches, and long conversations with myself, I crave a reset. Something stripped down. Something honest. Something that reminds me why I make images in the first place.
A reset before the year turns
Mason Williams was one of the last shoots of 2025 — and that felt important.
By the end of a year, especially one packed with ideas, projects, scents, sketches, and long conversations with myself, I crave a reset. Something stripped down. Something honest. Something that reminds me why I make images in the first place.
So Mason and I decided to remove almost everything.
No clothes.
No set.
No narrative forced too early.
Just body and soul.
This shoot wasn’t about fashion in the traditional sense. There are no garments to credit, no silhouettes to dissect. And yet — this is fashion. Or at least my idea of it. The movement becomes the garment. The tension becomes the tailoring. The scribbles become the styling.
The censor marks weren’t an afterthought — they are the fashion. Graphic, imperfect, instinctual. They sit on the body the way a well-placed seam or an unexpected cutout would. They interrupt. They frame. They ask you to look again.
Mason moved like someone listening to his body instead of posing for the camera. Every shift felt intentional without being precious. There was strength, softness, hesitation, confidence — sometimes all in the same frame. I didn’t direct much. I didn’t want to. This was about allowing space for presence rather than performance.
The room was quiet.
The light was simple.
The floor creaked when he moved.
That was enough.
I keep thinking about these images as a palette cleanser — a visual deep breath before stepping into everything that’s coming next for amadeo amadeo. Bigger projects. More collaborations. More worlds being built. But before all of that, I needed to return to the body. To gesture. To the idea that fashion isn’t always something you put on — sometimes it’s something you are.
These images feel like a threshold.
A pause.
A clean page.
A reminder that at the core of all of this — photography, scent, clothing, objects, performance — is the human form moving through space, trying to be understood.
Thank you, Mason, for trusting the process and stepping into this moment with me.
Here’s to the reset.
THE NOVEMBER INVENTORY
Every year around this time, I feel like I’m standing in the middle of my own studio floor, surrounded by boxes labeled: Keep, Toss, Transform.
What I’m Carrying Into the New Year (and What I’m Leaving Behind)
The Journal — November 30
Every year around this time, I feel like I’m standing in the middle of my own studio floor, surrounded by boxes labeled: Keep, Toss, Transform.
The end of November has always been that soft threshold for me.
Not quite the end.
Not quite the beginning.
Just the moment where I pause, look around at everything I’ve made, everything I’ve tried, everything I’ve survived—and decide what’s coming with me into the next chapter.
This is my November inventory.
What I’m Carrying Forward
The world in my head
The drive to keep building the creative universe that I live in internally—and keep opening the door wider so other people can step further inside. amadeo amadeo is not just a brand; it’s a world. I’m choosing to lean into that fully.
Dadaist humor
The absurdity, the sideways jokes, the moments where things shouldn’t make sense but somehow do. Dadaism, to me, is a way of saying: I can tell the truth by breaking the rules of how truth is usually told. I’m carrying that with me in how I write, design, photograph, and perform.
Collaging in new ways
Not just paper, scissors, glue. Collaging feelings, timelines, faces, scents, archives. Analog collages, digital collages, and life collages. I’m bringing forward the urge to keep cutting things up and putting them back together in ways that tell a deeper story.
Painting as sculpture
I’m keeping the curiosity of: what even is a painting?
Layering, texturing, pulling paint across canvas like fabric, sculpting with brushstrokes, creating pleats and folds in color. Exploring color blocking not just as aesthetics, but as architecture.
Photographing fashion through abstraction
Continuing to photograph, but always with that amadeo amadeo twist: fashion as character, abstraction as truth, the body as a moving sculpture. Making images that sit somewhere between a campaign, a memory, and a glitch in reality.
Storytelling through scent
The Codex, the incense, the skin scents and rooms that smell like memory. I’m carrying forward my obsession with telling stories through top notes, heart notes, and drydowns—turning my life into olfactory chapters.
Clowning and the act of clowning
Bellamy, A. Clown, the Town Crier—the entire clown universe. I’m not leaving that behind. I’m deepening it. Clowning as a form of storytelling, as self-portrait, as emotional honesty. The clown as a mirror.
Learning through craft
I never want to sit stagnant. I’m carrying forward the commitment to keep learning—technically, emotionally, conceptually. To master things and then break the mold on purpose. To keep asking, what else can this become?
What I’m Leaving Behind
Burnout as a personality trait
I love to constantly be creating and thinking. That part I’m keeping.
But I’m leaving behind the version of myself that doesn’t know how to pause.
I want to build more space between ideas so curiosity has room to creep in instead of being chased.
Scattered ideas
My brain loves ten tracks at once. I’m leaving behind the chaos of letting each one run in a different direction with no center. I want all the different avenues—clowning, collage, fragrance, fashion, painting—to live on one path of identity. One story, many expressions.
Self-doubt and emotional clutter
I’m done carrying the heavy box of “Is this good enough?” and “Does this make sense?” My work makes sense in the way my world makes sense. That’s enough. I’m leaving behind the extra noise that tries to convince me otherwise.
What I’m Bringing In
Reinvention of the past
I don’t want to abandon where I’ve been; I want to reinvent it. I’m inviting in new ways of revisiting old work—new edits, new contexts, new mediums, new mashups. Old ideas with upgraded skins.
New scents, new collages, new worlds
More fragrances, more Codex chapters, more collage work, more layering of mediums. New explorations—geographically, emotionally, artistically. New ways of connecting people to the amadeo amadeo world.
A deeper amadeo amadeo universe
I’m calling in a richer, more immersive version of everything I’ve started: more entry points for people to step into, more continuity between the different projects, more cohesion in the chaos.
Investigation
Lots of deep digging into my past—family, memories, early work, first attempts—to understand what my future actually looks like. Letting the earlier versions of me sit at the same table as who I am now and who I’m becoming.
This is my inventory:
what stays, what goes, what’s invited in.
If you’re reading this, you’re already inside the world a little bit.
Next year, I want to pull you even further in.
— Anthony / amadeo amadeo
The Power of Scent with Arnold Kouassi
When I first came across Arnold Kouassi on Instagram, I knew instantly that I had to photograph him. There was something in his presence that felt like it belonged in the Giant Denim series—his energy, his movement, his ability to create shapes with his body that felt sculptural. What I loved most, though, was that he kept on his own jewelry for the shoot. Rings, watch, chains, bracelets—personal artifacts that added texture and narrative to the images. Those small details allowed the portraits to hold both his story and mine at the same time.
When I first came across Arnold Kouassi on Instagram, I knew instantly that I had to photograph him. There was something in his presence that felt like it belonged in the Giant Denim series—his energy, his movement, his ability to create shapes with his body that felt sculptural. What I loved most, though, was that he kept on his own jewelry for the shoot. Rings, watch, chains, bracelets—personal artifacts that added texture and narrative to the images. Those small details allowed the portraits to hold both his story and mine at the same time.
The juxtaposition of his shiny dark skin against the rough texture of oversized denim was magnetic. Every pose carried weight. Every shift in movement created new draping and new shapes. These are the moments that I live for in portraiture—when the collaboration between model and photographer creates something beyond just image-making.
But what struck me most was Arnold’s scent. It carried a familiarity that immediately triggered a memory of my aunt. A flood of warmth, nostalgia, and connection. We started talking about the power of scent—the way it can narrate an entire lifetime of memories without a single word.
I believe that the very first time you wear a fragrance is sacred. That first wear should be set aside for something special: a new chapter, a celebration, or a moment you want to lock in forever. Because scent has the power to capture a core memory. You might not consciously recall the fragrance later, but your body will remember. When you cross paths with that note again—floral, musky, citrus, smoky—it will transport you back to that exact place, that exact feeling.
Think about the first time you meet someone while wearing a fragrance. They might not register the scent consciously, but they’ll remember you. The way you moved, spoke, or laughed—all tied to that invisible, unforgettable trail in the air. That’s the power of scent. It lingers, it shapes memory, it tells a story long after the moment has passed.
For me, scent is art. It’s a medium as powerful as photography, painting, or sound. It’s intangible yet deeply human. I’m currently working on a few scent-related art pieces that explore this exact idea, and I can’t wait to share them soon.
Photographing Arnold was not just about denim or portraits. It was about collaboration, about narrative, and about memory. These images carry the texture of denim, the glint of jewelry, the shine of skin, and the invisible weight of scent—the kind that lingers in your mind as much as in the air.
Look out for more images of Arnold from this series across my other platforms. This is just the beginning.
The return of A. Clown?
A. Clown hasn’t been seen in some time. He didn’t storm off stage, didn’t slam the door, didn’t even leave a note—he simply stepped behind the silver curtain and let the folds swallow him.
A. Clown hasn’t been seen in some time. He didn’t storm off stage, didn’t slam the door, didn’t even leave a note—he simply stepped behind the silver curtain and let the folds swallow him.
Once upon a time, I wore his face. Painted on a new mood every time. Sometimes a whisper, sometimes a scream. He lived in portraits, in paintings, in the way people’s eyes darted between fascination and discomfort. You either loved him or you couldn’t look at him. That’s the magic of a clown. That’s the danger of one, too.
But clowns aren’t built to vanish entirely. They hide in the air between you and the mirror. They hide in mylar wrinkles that turn a reflection into a puzzle. They hide in balloon animals—small, strange sculptures that carry a joke only the clown knows.
These portraits are a way to keep him close without summoning him fully back. Each face here is a flicker of him: the tilt of a head, the curve of light, the way a shadow smiles even when the lips don’t. The clown is still here. He’s just watching from behind the shimmer.
Now the question is—do you see him?
Giant Jeans
A short reflection on scale, shape, and the feeling of not fitting in. A written piece from Anthony Amadeo—before the images, just the words.
They don’t fit. They belong.
By Anthony Amadeo
Published in The Journal
There was a pair of jeans.
They arrived uninvited.
No tag. No origin. No proof of purchase.
Only folds. Only volume.
They hung like silence.
They draped like history.
They did not fit.
Which, in many circles, would be considered failure.
Tailors whispered. Stylists measured.
Photographers blinked.
They tried to make sense of the scale.
“Who are they for?”
“Where are the darts?”
“Should we hem them?”
The answer was no.
The answer was not now.
The answer was: they already are.
You see, the Giant Jeans weren’t made to flatter.
They were made to frame.
They weren’t worn to impress.
They were worn to exist.
Not a fit—an environment.
Not a garment—a gesture.
They moved through light like a second shadow.
They swallowed knees, hugged air, trailed behind like stories.
No one knew how to wear them “correctly.”
And yet, every body they touched looked... correct.
People began to talk.
Theorists. Teenagers.
Former models turned archivists.
They said the jeans weren’t real.
They said the photos were fake.
They said no one would make jeans that didn’t fit.
But they were wrong.
Or they were right.
Or both.
Because maybe the point was never to fit.
The campaign, if we’re calling it that, isn’t about jeans.
It’s about proportions that don’t apologize.
It’s about shape without shame.
It’s about showing up exactly as you are—too big, too loud, too much—and realizing:
You belonged here the whole time.
You were the fit.
Let the others tailor themselves into silence.
Let them cinch and compress and conform.
Let them ask what size you wear.
You don’t answer.
You walk.
In Giant Jeans.
Moving like a fact.
Unfolding into the space that was always yours.
Photography + Art Direction by Anthony Amadeo
@anthonyxamadeo | @amadeoxamadeo
This is not a campaign. This is a confirmation.
amadeo amadeo: The Journal (SUMMER ISSUE)
The Summer Issue is a sun-soaked archive of memory, body, scent, and image. From portraits that bloom like plants to fragrances that bottle heat and longing, this issue is a garden grown from nostalgia and stretched into modern myth. Featuring editorial collage, recipes, soap, and spoken moments for hot days and cool shadows.
"All This Time, I Thought 'Art is a Bunch of BS' Meant Balloon Sculptures"
For years, I nodded along when people would dismissively mutter, "Art is just a bunch of BS."
And for years, I genuinely thought they meant Balloon Sculptures.
For years, I nodded along when people would dismissively mutter, "Art is just a bunch of BS."
And for years, I genuinely thought they meant Balloon Sculptures.
I imagined an entire secret society — one where artists twisted latex into abstract forms, floated their rebellion into the sky, and let the world misunderstand them entirely. To me, BS stood for an entire movement. It wasn’t an insult — it was a misunderstood compliment.
So I’ve decided to lean into it.
Introducing a new series: Balloon Sculptures — an earnest tribute to misunderstanding, miscommunication, and the beautifully absurd.
Each piece will be hand-twisted, hung, documented, and mythologized. A soft rebellion in thin air. Fragile, fleeting, and just serious enough to confuse you.
In a world that demands you defend your work with dissertations, I’m choosing to float a balloon.
And when they call it BS — they’ll be absolutely right.
- Anthony Amadeo, Amadeo Amadeo
THE AMADEO INCIDENT
THE AMADEO INCIDENT
Or, The Artist Who Came to Earth With a Camera and a Nose for Memory
by a former employee of the U.S. Bureau of Olfactory Surveillance
THE AMADEO INCIDENT
Or, The Artist Who Came to Earth With a Camera and a Nose for Memory
by a former employee of the U.S. Bureau of Olfactory Surveillance
For decades, whispers have swirled through the upper crust of the fashion elite, the fragrance underground, and certain dive bar booths in both Palermo and the Lower East Side. The whispers all ask the same question:
Who is Anthony Amadeo?
At first glance, he seems like just another artistic savant—blessed with impeccable taste, the eye of a Renaissance sculptor, and the eerie ability to extract perfume from a memory you forgot you had. But something doesn’t add up.
There are no childhood photos.
His studio doesn’t age.
Clients describe his portraits as “time loops.”
And every scent he crafts smells like a place that doesn’t exist—but should.
More curiously, he refers to his work under the brand “amadeo amadeo”—a doubling, a mirror, a signal. Linguistic experts say this kind of repetition is common in extraterrestrial code-switching, a phenomenon seen in transmissions intercepted by SETI and in the infamous 1987 Fragrance Files Leak (since suppressed).
But the most damning evidence? The Codex.
The Codex is a series of ten numbered fragrances, each with a storyline so detailed, so emotionally specific, it’s as if someone bottled alternate timelines. Theories abound:
No. 37 references a house that doesn’t appear on any official maps, yet people who’ve smelled it all remember the same backyard: overgrown basil, the scent of sun on vinyl, a garden hose still running.
No. 240 is said to summon images of people’s grandparents—regardless of their ethnicity or location—down to eerily precise details.
No. 88? We’re not allowed to speak of No. 88. Not after what happened in East LA last summer. The lowriders started levitating.
Witnesses claim Amadeo doesn’t create the scents—he retrieves them. Some say he’s a memory cartographer from a dying star system. Others claim he’s an archivist for the Council of Sensory Continuity, a galactic council tasked with bottling Earth before it disappears in the next reset.
The most fringe theory (and yet the one most cited in backroom dealer circles) is that Anthony Amadeo is not here to stay. He is only collecting. Fragments. Feelings. Faces. His showroom isn’t a business—it’s a beacon.
A signal back home.
Stay tuned. The scent is stronger than ever. And the next fragrance drop might be a countdown.
This has been a report from The Journal. Believe nothing. Smell everything.
Vincent by Anthony Amadeo
Photocopies of Vincent Paladino by Anthony Amadeo
Photocopies of Vincent Paladino by Anthony Amadeo
Wig by amadeoamadeo
The Journal: Spring Issue - Canvas of Beginnings
Spring. The mere whisper of the word breathes life into the dormant, stirring the sleeping hues beneath the earth into a riot of color. It's not just a season; it’s a vibrant reawakening, a fresh canvas waiting for bold strokes. Here at amadeo amadeo, spring isn't just about blooming flowers; it’s about blooming ideas.
This season, we dive headfirst into a mélange of creations and reflections. From the lingering scent of mimosa—those tiny suns lighting up every corner of our studio—to the crisp pages of our journals brimming with sketches, every element sings of renewal.
Tonight, a new collage set emerges, not yet named but pulsing with the same vitality that runs through our veins this season. It’s a work in progress, a narrative unfolding petal by petal, a story stitched from the fabric of everyday enchantment.
“Luxury. What is it? Not the heavy definition they teach you but the light one you feel when the details line up just so. Peeling café signs, glossy typography, the sway of a cigarette. Luxe is a bouquet bought for a few euros and dropped into a handmade vase. It’s the unrepeatable ceremony of this moment, right here, right now,” I mused in a Paris cafe, as the city's symphony unfurled around me. This sentiment captures the essence of our spring offerings, intertwining the simple with the sublime.
Anticipation is also ripe for the Fall/Winter 2025 collections. The runways have spoken, and I am eager to translate their whispers into a series of line drawings—my ode to the couture that captivated my artist’s heart.
What will bloom from the studio of amadeo amadeo this spring? Expect a confusion of colors, a tapestry of textures, and a symphony of scents. We are all gardeners of the spirit, and this is our season to cultivate.
Stay tuned, for each petal unfurls a story, each scent a memory. Dive into the spring issue of The Journal, where we pluck the days, arrange them into bouquets of thought, and present them to you—our fellow dreamers and makers.
Jamil: From Barcelona to NYC, Captured in Motion
AA: Jamil, it was such a pleasure photographing you during your visit to NYC!
Your profile is incredible to photograph, and you brought such a strong energy to the shoot. How was the experience for you, especially being part of the giant denim jeans series?
AA: Jamil, it was such a pleasure photographing you during your visit to NYC!
Your profile is incredible to photograph, and you brought such a strong energy to the shoot. How was the experience for you, especially being part of the giant denim jeans series?
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JM: Thanks a lot for your words! It’s always interesting for me to hear about how people perceive my energy. It shows me different ways to look at myself that I usually don’t think about. I really enjoyed the shoot. It felt to me more like a casual conversation between 2 people talking about who they are, their aspirations and how they see the world.
AA: You currently reside in Barcelona—a city I’ve always wanted to visit.
What’s life like there for you? Can you share a bit about the culture, the architecture, and the food? What makes it feel like home?
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JM: Barcelona is the people, the beach, the vibes. It’s a place where people come to live life.
At least that’s what Barcelona is for me.
I travel often and even though I fall in love with every new place I discover, in the back of my mind I’m always longing to be back in Barcelona. It’s the place where I feel home.
It has such a rich and diverse culture that whatever your interests are you will find it here.
AA: Beyond modeling, what’s your world like?
Tell us a bit about the work or passions you focus on outside of the camera lens. What inspires you creatively in your day-to-day life?
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JM: Outside modeling I’m a design geek, I work on designing softwares, apps and digital tools. I enjoy swimming a lot, being in nature, you will always find me on the beach in winter and in summer. I’m inspired by cultures, I love discovering new cultures and witnessing how people from different cultures live.
AA: During the shoot, I gifted you some of my incense No. 1.
Have you had a chance to try it? How do you like the scent, and do you enjoy incorporating elements like fragrance into your personal space or routines?
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JM: Scent for me is related to memory. A memory of a childhood moment, a place I like or a person dear to me. Trying your incense reminded me of some of the conversations we had during the shoot. I loved how scent was a medium where you channel your creativity.
Personally I gravitate more toward natural, earthy, and subtle scents.
AA: Barcelona has such a rich creative energy.
Do you feel like living there influences your sense of style or creativity? Are there any places in the city—maybe a favorite spot or hidden gem—that you’d recommend for inspiration?
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JM: For sure, as someone who loves discovering and experiencing places, any place can influence my style. Barcelona’s laid back and effortless vibes are definitely present in my style.
Not very hidden but of course the beach is my favorite spot for inspiration and creativity (By now you can see a pattern). Especially during the early mornings where life is still slow and idle, and during sunset hours where life is going back to its balanced rhythm.
AA: Shooting you was such a great experience, and I’d love to do it again.
If we were to collaborate on another shoot, what kind of concept or vibe would you love to explore? Something bold, experimental, or more pared down and intimate?
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JM: One of the reasons I enjoy modeling is because I get to shoot different concepts and explore different vibes. I would definitely love to shoot something experimental and maybe with different artistic mediums.
AA: Finally, where can people keep up with you?
Do you have any projects, work, or creative endeavors coming up that you’d like to share?
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JM: I’m actually very excited for 2025! Last year was all about laying the foundation for my growth, both as a model and as a person. Now, I feel ready to embrace this next phase and take things to the next level.
While I can’t talk about all the projects at the moment, there’s so many endeavors that I’m personally looking forward to. With modeling, I’m planning on heading to Paris later in the year and see where that takes me.
I’m excited and very curious what this new phase will bring me. people can keep up with me on my ig @jamilwins where I’ll be sharing more details on the go.