As an automotive engineer who worked for General Motors and Delphi, it makes sense that Aaron Hall’s dad introduced his son to cars. But he was also simultaneously introducing him to art.
“I like looking at how art came about, versus just saying ‘Oh, this car is cool, what kind of engine does it have?’” said Hall, a Flint native. “Instead I was like, ‘Who designed this?’”
Growing up, Hall remembers going to the North American International Auto Show and other car shows and being impressed by not only the vehicles, but all of the work that went into creating displays, marketing, and other design and creativity concepts.
“My biggest influence for me getting into art is cars,” Hall said. “I always got to see the engineering side and more so the technology side (through his dad), and that was cool, but I was always like what is this over here where they’ve actually got all these drawings of cars? Seeing the actual art of it from a distance actually got me into it, and then now you see they have entire teams creating media, photography, design work, you need all of those aspects. And that was a cool overlap to know there is the engineering side of things, but this other side that makes all of it look as good as it does.”
Hall attended International Academy of Flint and then Genesee Early College and Mott Middle College. After that, he went to Mott Community College and is currently majoring in interdisciplinary art and design with a minor in art education at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit. He said that he’s always had a fascination with drawing since he was a young kid, and that has grown and spread to other artforms as he’s continued in his education and practice.
He is interested in photography and videography, and has shot music videos. He’s also done graphic design work. But his foundation will always be where he started.
“My favorite media I always stick to is just like a sketchpad, pencil, and paper,” Hall said. “But now, I’m more into design and photography because those are newer to me. I got really deep into it because I would go to car meetups, and everyone’s there getting really nice pictures, so I wanted to see what I could do with that. I’ve worked on my design skills, and I’ve always loved video too, so now in school, I’m working in the video realm of editing and doing After Effects and all that stuff.”
Hall, who goes by Airr.rinn artistically (@airr.rinn on Instagram), offers a variety of creative services on his website, The Culture Studio 810. He’s been able to build his skillset as an artist and a client base thanks in part to opportunities and connections he’s made in Flint.
He started by designing and selling shirts with his cousin when they were in high school. That gave him his first experience actually making and selling things on his own, and he developed some of those skills through his participation in YouthQuest, an afterschool enrichment program in Genesee County.
That evolved into more client-specific work, including creating designs and printing for other people. He works at Comma Bookstore and Social Hub downtown Flint and has done design work for the store. He also had exposure to other businesses, entrepreneurs, and creative people through working at 100K Ideas, a nonprofit organization that provides support to small business owners and startups. It helped him build his skills as an artist and gain confidence when he’d receive feedback on his work.
“I just started being able to talk to more people, network more, and it helped me add different skills,” Hall said. “The exposure to a bunch of different people is just influential, they’re all doing a bunch of different things, but they’d say, ‘What you’re doing is also really cool.’”
He continues to push himself to experiment in different media. One of his favorite pieces is a 3-dimensional work that depicts a hand over a body made of metal wire and wood depicting how depression can hover over a person and be hard to escape.
“The longer you deal with it (depression), the longer you fight back, it just falls apart because the hand is made of foil,” Hall said. “And over time, pieces of the foil have fallen apart and the piece is a lot smaller than it was. So I like that piece.”
His connections at Comma also led to him hosting his first art exhibition at the store during Flint Art Walk on November 14. He was able to showcase a collection of his work for some of his supporters and also meet new people who stopped in the store.
“It was the first time I did my own event, with my name, my art, my brand on it,” Hall said. “I promoted it, organized it, did everything with my friends and family. It was a new feeling because I’ve sold stuff before, but it’s always been like a transaction. This was more open, more people. I was actually interacting and getting the aspect of this that is how this (his art) makes you feel. This is how you are looking at it and how it’s changing your emotions versus like I’m providing you a service.”
Being able to do his first show in Flint, and at Comma, was meaningful for him.
“Being able to be in a Black-owned bookstore that is one of the coolest places in Michigan, in the middle of the city I live in, was really just an amazing thing,” he said.
Hall hopes to exhibit more work in the future as he continues pursuing his degree. Having the chance to study at CCS has also opened his mind to career possibilities that incorporate art or creativity.
“My dream goal would be to be a creative director fo Red Bull,” he said. “Red Bull has some of the coolest marketing. I also like a lot of different Apple commercials, or Apple TV cinema and stuff like that is phenomenally produced.”
Hall encourages other young artists to keep practicing their work and style, but also to become obsessive in the amount of research they do.
“Research who did it,” he said. “I would look at music videos, but I would want to know who the creative director is, who did the writing, who did the storyboarding. And then I go look at their individual work.”
He also said it is important to find the confidence to work through setbacks or failures.
“Art is very subjective, so not everyone’s gonna like it,” Hall said. “You’re gonna run into people who say, ‘I don’t really care for that.’ Most people don’t have an artist’s eye. So they can’t see the same thing that you see in the piece, and you just gotta know that you like the piece and you just keep going with it. I do a lot of different work, but all my work has meaning and I try to always have a piece of me in the work, even when it’s for other people. I think everybody, even when you’re working for other people, should just keep that mindset, if you’re making art, make sure you put a piece of yourself in that art.”
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