Nate Brown decided to try psychedelic mushrooms to beat a weed habit and fell into another passion instead.
While participating in a Johns Hopkins Medicine study on mushroom-derived psilocybin, and the drug’s ability to curb addictive behaviors, the local writing professor discovered he loves to paint cigarettes. Specifically, brightly colored, pop art-inspired depictions of cigarettes with water-soluble paint. Brown calls it a compensatory compulsion.
“The day of that first trip, I got home and I started painting, and I’ve painted all but four days since Sept. 12,” he said. Brown had tried figurative and abstract works in the past, but painting cigarettes came easily for the self-described “doodler” and former smoker.
The 44-year-old has, indeed, been prolific. Brown has made more than 1,150 cigarette paintings, some of which he’s sold to buyers locally and around the country, thanks to purchased ad space on Instagram.
The fruits of his artistic labor will be on display Thursday afternoon in a quirky fashion that feels oh-so Baltimore — inside a tiny Charles Village garage that’s doubling as a pop-up gallery. There, Brown will present his paintings, professional writers will read selected works and local bookstore Greedy Reads will sell books. The free event is 4-7 p.m. at 2706 Hargrove St.
The event was scheduled as counterprogramming to this week’s Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference, North America’s largest annual literary gathering, at the Baltimore Convention Center.
“Conference culture sort of sucks,” Brown said. “It’s just like any other industry conference, with booths and swag and panel sessions. So, we figured this would be a nice contrast.”
While his day job as a senior lecturer in Hopkins’ University Writing Program keeps Brown busy, he’s been interested in visual art since high school.
“My parents’ house was filled with my terrible teenage pottery,” said Brown, who grew up in Visalia, California.
After a “pretty rough” 2025 that included the death of a close aunt, Brown found peace in the repetition of painting cigarettes — from pristine darts fresh out of a pack to varying lengths of stubbed-out remnants.
Brown described the process as “super meditative,” as he sometimes finished paintings as episodes of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” played in the background.
Brown is a senior lecturer in Hopkins’ University Writing Program but he’s been interested in visual arts since high school. (Kaitlin Newman/The Banner)
Most of his paintings are the size of a postcard (4×6 inches) and cost $20, while medium (7×10 inches, $40) and large formats (11×14 inches, $60) are also available for sale.
The paintings — on backgrounds of bold blues, purples and reds, alongside softer pastels — are not based on a specific cigarette, though Brown’s former brand of choice was Camel Lights. These days, he might bum a cigarette after some drinks, but his vices have largely grown more innocent with age.
“I’m more of a Coke Zero drinker,” Brown said. “I hit my 30s and smoking and drinking started feeling a lot harder than it once had.”
Brown particularly enjoys the technique he landed on: He paints his cigarettes with the gouache (pronounced like “squash”) technique, a.k.a. opaque watercolor, which is similar to acrylic paint but also more forgiving, Brown said. He loves the bright colors and its smooth matte finish.
“It’s pretty easy for beginners,” he said.
Brown described the process as “super meditative,” and he loves the bright colors and smooth matte finish. (Kaitlin Newman/The Banner)
No-smoking stickers will be used to indicate which paintings have sold. (Kaitlin Newman/The Banner)
Still, of all the objects to base a painting on, isn’t there a better choice than a cigarette — especially when tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in America?
Probably, and Brown doesn’t disagree. His art website includes a warning not to smoke, for what it’s worth. He described cigarettes as insidious and the tobacco industry as “totally fucking evil.”
His reasoning is a lot more simple — Brown said he enjoys painting cigarettes because they’re one of the few objects he’s good at painting. Pop art, like Andy Warhol’s ode to Campbell’s soup cans, “takes the world as its subject,” Brown said. If someone picks up their first cigarette, his whimsical paintings probably won’t be why, he said.
“Let me put it this way: There’s all kinds of other social influences, and I think the gouache is probably not the tipping point for most people,” he said with a smile.
Kira Wisniewski, Brown’s friend and neighbor who’s hosting the pop-up gallery in her garage, “instantly loved” the paintings. “Accessible, playful, powerful — these are hitting all the notes for me,” Wisniewski said.
Kira Wisniewski helps friend Brown set up for his upcoming art show in her garage. (Kaitlin Newman/The Banner)
They’re both excited for Thursday’s event, especially for the poets they picked to read, including “Rainbow Rainbow” author Lydi Conklin, Baltimore’s Sylvia Jones and the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Jane Lewty. Pangea Printing will be there selling made-in-Baltimore Charm City swag, too.
After Thursday, the paintings will remain up in the garage, from 1-4 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Any paintings that haven’t sold will go up for sale on Brown’s website.
Following the weekend, the only certainty is that Brown won’t stop painting cigarettes. A magic mushrooms study was a catalyst to this wonderfully weird side hustle, one that unexpectedly emerged in Brown’s life when he needed it.
“It was immensely therapeutic to sit and have something to just focus on,” he said. “This was something I could do that was totally for myself and by myself.”
Brown prepares for his upcoming art show by hanging paintings of cigarettes and cigarette butts in Wisniewski’s garage. (Kaitlin Newman/The Banner)