{"id":505684,"date":"2026-03-05T18:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T18:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/505684\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T18:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T18:26:12","slug":"how-a-hopkins-professors-mushroom-trip-led-to-1000-paintings-of-cigarettes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/505684\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Hopkins professor\u2019s mushroom trip led to 1,000 paintings of cigarettes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nate Brown decided to try psychedelic mushrooms to beat a weed habit and fell into another passion instead. <\/p>\n

While participating in a Johns Hopkins Medicine study on mushroom-derived psilocybin, and the drug\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe day of that first trip, I got home and I started painting, and I\u2019ve painted all but four days since Sept. 12,\u201d he said. Brown had tried figurative and abstract works in the past, but painting cigarettes came easily for the self-described \u201cdoodler\u201d and former smoker. <\/p>\n

The 44-year-old has, indeed, been prolific. Brown has made more than 1,150 cigarette paintings, some of which he\u2019s sold to buyers locally and around the country, thanks to purchased ad space on Instagram.<\/p>\n

The fruits of his artistic labor will be on display Thursday afternoon in a quirky fashion that feels oh-so Baltimore \u2014 inside a tiny Charles Village garage that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The event was scheduled as counterprogramming to this week\u2019s Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference, North America\u2019s largest annual literary gathering, at the Baltimore Convention Center. <\/p>\n

\u201cConference culture sort of sucks,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIt\u2019s just like any other industry conference, with booths and swag and panel sessions. So, we figured this would be a nice contrast.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his day job as a senior lecturer in Hopkins\u2019 University Writing Program keeps Brown busy, he\u2019s been interested in visual art since high school. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents\u2019 house was filled with my terrible teenage pottery,\u201d said Brown, who grew up in Visalia, California.<\/p>\n

After a \u201cpretty rough\u201d 2025 that included the death of a close aunt, Brown found peace in the repetition of painting cigarettes \u2014 from pristine darts fresh out of a pack to varying lengths of stubbed-out remnants.<\/p>\n

Brown described the process as \u201csuper meditative,\u201d as he sometimes finished paintings as episodes of \u201cStar Trek: Deep Space Nine\u201d played in the background.<\/p>\n

\"\"Brown is a senior lecturer in Hopkins\u2019 University Writing Program but he\u2019s been interested in visual arts since high school. (Kaitlin Newman\/The Banner)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The paintings \u2014 on backgrounds of bold blues, purples and reds, alongside softer pastels \u2014 are not based on a specific cigarette, though Brown\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m more of a Coke Zero drinker,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI hit my 30s and smoking and drinking started feeling a lot harder than it once had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown particularly enjoys the technique he landed on: He paints his cigarettes with the gouache (pronounced like \u201csquash\u201d) 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty easy for beginners,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Brown described the process as \u201csuper meditative,\u201d 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)<\/p>\n

Still, of all the objects to base a painting on, isn\u2019t there a better choice than a cigarette \u2014 especially when tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in America? <\/p>\n

Probably, and Brown doesn\u2019t disagree. His art website includes a warning not to smoke, for what it\u2019s worth. He described cigarettes as insidious and the tobacco industry as \u201ctotally fucking evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

His reasoning is a lot more simple \u2014 Brown said he enjoys painting cigarettes because they\u2019re one of the few objects he\u2019s good at painting. Pop art, like Andy Warhol\u2019s ode to Campbell\u2019s soup cans, \u201ctakes the world as its subject,\u201d Brown said. If someone picks up their first cigarette, his whimsical paintings probably won\u2019t be why, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me put it this way: There\u2019s all kinds of other social influences, and I think the gouache is probably not the tipping point for most people,\u201d he said with a smile.<\/p>\n

Kira Wisniewski, Brown\u2019s friend and neighbor who\u2019s hosting the pop-up gallery in her garage, \u201cinstantly loved\u201d the paintings. \u201cAccessible, playful, powerful \u2014 these are hitting all the notes for me,\u201d Wisniewski said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Kira Wisniewski helps friend Brown set up for his upcoming art show in her garage. (Kaitlin Newman\/The Banner)<\/p>\n

They\u2019re both excited for Thursday\u2019s event, especially for the poets they picked to read, including \u201cRainbow Rainbow\u201d author Lydi Conklin, Baltimore\u2019s Sylvia Jones and the Maryland Institute College of Art\u2019s Jane Lewty. Pangea Printing will be there selling made-in-Baltimore Charm City swag, too.<\/p>\n

After Thursday, the paintings will remain up in the garage, from 1-4 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Any paintings that haven\u2019t sold will go up for sale on Brown\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Following the weekend, the only certainty is that Brown won\u2019t stop painting cigarettes. A magic mushrooms study was a catalyst to this wonderfully weird side hustle, one that unexpectedly emerged in Brown\u2019s life when he needed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was immensely therapeutic to sit and have something to just focus on,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was something I could do that was totally for myself and by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Brown prepares for his upcoming art show by hanging paintings of cigarettes and cigarette butts in Wisniewski\u2019s garage. (Kaitlin Newman\/The Banner)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nate Brown decided to try psychedelic mushrooms to beat a weed habit and fell into another passion instead.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,230065,229,88,299,230066,19447,230067],"class_list":["post-505684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-baltimore-peninsula","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-food","tag-pinky-cole","tag-restaurant","tag-slutty-vegan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}