This is the fine-art portfolio of artist & engineer Aaron Smulktis.
Aaron started life as a fine-artist & oil painter, but began playing music as a kid in church and high-school bands before moving to NYC and joining forces with Phil Weinrobe and John-Paul Norpoth to form indie rock band Butane Variations. Aaron helped the group build a studio in the LES for rehearsals and recording, Rivington 66. Aaron’s software dev chops got him gigs building sites for music photographers David Black (Daft Punk, Cat Power) and Michael Greenberg (Kanye West, Salena Gomez). He soon dropped out of School of Visual Arts and began working with a creative technology agency in the Bronx, scenyc. Aaron started playing solo shows sharing bills with other Bronx bands Tramponaline and Jacque Ryal. Around this time Aaron befriended Broadway producer Jared Geller, and went on to help produce over a dozen shows at Carnegie Hall, Helen Hayes Theatre, and other off-Broadway theaters, shows like Kiki & Herb: Alive On Broadway, Jerry Springer: The Opera, Family Guy Sings!, The Wainwright Family & Friends Christmas and others. Around 2008 he met Alana Stewart on the NYC subway and became her drummer, simultaneously joining Frances Rose as their drummer. Aaron began producing & engineering artists like Christian Rich and Barton Stanley David, working out of the studio he helped design & build back in 2006, Rivington 66. Over the years, Aaron continued to write, produce, and perform his own music, never releasing anything publicly. Around 2010, Aaron used skills working construction as a teen with his father, and built a pergola and a patio in his Brooklyn backyard, realizing only after that he’d just built a nice stage to accompany the 50+ varieties of plants, fruits, and vegetables he was growing. He went on to host a supper-club called Cafe Shh and series of concerts entitled The Garden Stage, featuring live performances from many artists like Talain Rayne, Caleb Hawley, and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Around 2011, Aaron was asked to play a small concert on a historic Ellis Island ferryboat, Yankee Ferry. The next day, he had a job aboard the vessel as “1st mate”, a new home on the Hudson River, and a new floating recording studio. After a couple years, Aaron bought his own houseboat, a 1986 Gibson Standard Houseboat, built aboard a modest studio and crossed the river to Manhattan, docking the next 3 years at Chelsea Piers, writing and recording some of the songs that would become his 2023 release, Watermark. In 2016, Aaron performed a show of new material in Brooklyn with a full-band and rapper Xaivia, announcing a new line of proprietary bottled teas called Saltea, his latest music project Smokey.FM and record label Smokey Records LLC. In the height of the Coronavirus pandemic, Aaron went back into the studio to record his first full-length studio album, Watermark.