We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aiden “A.J.” Brown. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aiden below.
Aiden, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
A friend of mine recently approached me after a reading to say he felt like he could tell that I went to school for writing, and I was so flattered that I didn’t have the heart to correct him. I wasn’t an English major until my master’s degree, and even then I was pretty Shakespeare-focused. I took a couple of creative writing classes in high school and in undergrad, but for the most part, it’s all been trial and error.
Painting even more so– it was my pandemic hobby. I actually had this epiphany like, “I’m an adult! I can just go buy art supplies if I want!” And I’ve been painting ever since. I love watching my work grow and change over time. I still treasure the first piece, “The Creature/Obfuscation,” that made me think “Oh, maybe I can actually do this.”
I write and paint from a very similar place. I’m an expressionist in both: my work isn’t necessarily meant to be an objective representation of reality, but an illustration of an experience.
Aiden, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m originally from Chicago. I moved to California–originally to Stanford– in 2020, but a series of bizarre and messy circumstances landed me in LA. I never thought I’d live here. I’m not especially interested in film, and after I went to acting school for undergrad, I realized I had no interest in that either, so I felt like there was nothing for me here. Thankfully, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I stumbled into the literary community in LA, it felt like a world of possibilities revealed itself. I started submitting around, and within just the last year I had a handful of poems, a full book, several paintings– I even had a short story win a prize. To my absolute astonishment, I had a piece published in Hobart, and a couple in the LA Review of Books, which were absolute dream publications.
I started making prints of my art for a yard sale My first ever print sold to my friend Erin’s hoarder neighbor who gave me 20 dollars for it. I held the 20 in shock that someone would actually want to pay for my work.
I’ve always admired artists at the top of their game– my heroes are Ocean Vuong and Toni Morrison– so naturally, I wasn’t imagining myself among MacArthur and Nobel recipients. I was looking at people like them, like Van Gogh and Turner, and those are big footsteps to try to walk in. I think I was too intimidated at first to consider myself a real writer or a real artist, whatever that means. Now, I just try to focus on doing what’s authentic to me, my style (as it develops) and translating my experiences into art.
I’m inspired by the creatives I know in real life, who keep making even when it’s daunting or they’re not sure how they’ll be received. Their success is my success.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
I just read this book Molly by Blake Butler, and I’ve been telling everyone who will listen to me about it. Butler tells the story of his relationship with his late wife and the story of her death by suicide in 2020. It’s one of those books I think has to go down in literary history as one of the Great Books of this age– I think it’s a massive failure on us if it doesn’t. The story is told with so much compassion and beauty and love, while also being just devastating. I mean, I’ve met Blake once at a reading and never met Molly at all, but I feel like I’ve grieved her death with him after reading. It takes a really special piece to make someone feel like that. And Butler is an incredibly skilled writer, so the prose is just stunning. That’s a recent influence, but a big one to be sure. Since I read that, when I sit down to write something, I’m always thinking about how I can evoke that kind of intimacy, that kind of love, in my own work.
Another big textual influence is Nox by Anne Carson. Carson is another one of my literary heroes, and the way she told the story of her brother’s death in fragments and found images, in scraps of him and pieces of memoranda completely changed my outlook on what poetry and storytelling could be.
Lot of death happening here– I’d say I’m not usually this macabre, but I’d be lying.
I think the common thread is that I love creatives who break the rules, or who make something that could only have come from them.
The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker by Jack Skelley is like that too. It’s so unique to its time and place, and to Jack’s experience and voice. I think that’s why it’s having such a huge moment right now– we’re all looking for authenticity. It’s so easy to plaster on a face, especially with filters and social media– nobody wants to see that shit. We want to see people with their skin off (metaphorically of course).
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
This is something my partner (musician Kris Balocca) and I were just talking about. It’s rare that artists, especially smaller artists, reap a significant financial benefit from our work, but I think most would agree that’s not why we do it. For me, it’s being part of something. I’m a huge nerd about literature and book history (I have a day job teaching English) so being part of a movement gets me insanely jazzed.
It’s also something I’ve always felt a need to do. I feel like I never know how I’m feeling until I’m able to articulate it either in words or in art, so there’s a therapeutic element to be sure. But not all of my work is about Big Feelings, sometimes it’s just fun to make something. Painting always clears my head in a way nothing else can. Finishing a piece of writing is satisfying in a way that’s totally unique to anything else I’ve experienced. So I guess the shortest answer is that I do it because I have to. So all those impulses have somewhere to go.
Contact Info:
- Website: ajbrownarts.com
- Instagram: @inthefallofasparrow
- Other: thefallofasparrow.substack.com
Image Credits
Art is mine, photo credits to Samuel Braslow, Mollie Ophelia, Kris Balocca, Brittany Menjivar, and XXtoska