My friend, Lily Formato.
Lily Formato, 2025 by Madeline Lenore
Last night I photographed Lily in the studio at Formato Fine Arts. After finishing her BFA at SAIC, she now runs her gallery full time with this grounded, focused strength and precision that only a true Virgo artist can carry. I wanted to give a little nod to Annie Leibovitz and somehow this image happened. The second I clicked the shutter, I felt that rush go through me. When your whole body lights up because you know you caught something honest. When you get chills before you even look at the screen.
Artists know that feeling.
That spark. That moment of truth.
Lily and I create in a way that feels almost cosmic. She is the Virgo. Organized, steady, practical. I am the Pisces. Emotional, intuitive, driven by feeling and fire. Together it becomes this current of creative electricity that is so rare and so natural for us. You can feel it every time we work. It is why images like this happen. It is why the studio has the energy it does. It is why women walk in and feel something shift inside them.
Formato Fine Arts has turned into more than a gallery. It is the home of my studio. It is the heart of our creative world here in Wytheville. And it is becoming a space where Appalachian women feel powerful and seen, which is everything I care about. Lily deserves so much credit for that. She is pushing art forward in this community with a kind of quiet determination that I admire so much. She shows up. She carries the vision. She holds the space.
I am incredibly proud of this portrait.
But even more than that, I am proud of Lily.
She is my business partner. My friend. Someone I hold close to my heart. Together we are building something meaningful on Main Street and I know this is only the beginning.
Here is to Lily.
Here is to Formato Fine Arts.
Here is to the work we are creating that makes you stop for a second and breathe because you know it is special.
And here is to that moment of taking a photo and knowing deep down that you captured something real.