And she doesn't waste her time.
“It scares me sometimes,” says her art teacher, Olivia Olsen. “She paints really fast.”
Brown's first-ever show is hanging at the Red Poppy here in Ronan, and half of the eight pieces she chose to display sold in the first week they were up, for up to $1,200.
She chooses most of her portrait subjects from black-and-white photographs in old photography, history and art books - but one, of a French nun, came from a picture in an old National Geographic magazine.
Called “Devotion,” Olsen says the pastel was a turning point for the young artist, who started painting just two years ago.
“Instead of going for the classic beautiful face, she found the person inside,” Olsen says. “Ever since that one, she nails the person inside every time.”
Artists can purchase hundreds of different shades of colors with which to paint, but Olsen doesn't allow her students to take that route.
“To teach color theory, I limit them to red, yellow, blue, and a little white,” she says. “You can make any color by learning to mix those. Sure, you can buy hundreds of colors, and the people who make paint love that. But I just buy red, yellow and blue by the half gallon.”
Three weeks is the longest Brown has taken to finish even her most elaborate pieces, and one of the works in the show - “Irene's Graduation: 1929” - was completed in an afternoon.
“I'm not a perfectionist,” the teenager says. “I don't mix, mix and mix, trying to get the perfect color.”
You wouldn't know it from the results. Julia Borden, partner in the Red Poppy with Olsen, says the works display a maturity far beyond Brown's young age.
Like “Irene's Graduation,” most of the titles of her portraits have made-up names, such as “Eve” and “Antonia.”
But for her portrait of famed American photographer Alfred Stieglitz, whose marriage to artist Georgia O'Keeffe produced some of his most famous pictures, Brown went with “The Photographer.”
Her first still life is a two-picture set of the same subjects, a vase, tray and white rose she simply called “Still Life 1 Left” and “Still Life 1 Right.” They sold for $600 apiece.
She's still experimenting with signatures for her paintings. Some are signed “AKB,” others have her full name, still more have a combination of initials and her last name.
“I really haven't figured out how I'm going to sign them yet,” she says.
The oldest of eight children - her youngest brother is 8 weeks old - Brown is the daughter of Frank and Dana Brown of Ronan.
She's been home-schooled all her life, the result, she says, of her mother's unhappiness with the quality of public education available in the town where she grew up in Idaho.
The family moved to Ronan in 2001, where her father works as a diesel mechanic.
She's always liked to draw, Brown says, but didn't start painting until two years ago at the Red Poppy, where Olsen teaches art to several home-schooled students from the Mission Valley.
Brown is a perfect example of what the Red Poppy offers to valley residents, Borden says.
The Red Poppy's mission is to “create an environment for artistic and cultural expression, and provide opportunities for diverse experiences through participation and exhibition.”
Among its goals: “Provide a learning environment for the people of the Mission Valley to explore their interest in the arts and to discover hidden talents.”
The cultural center has everything from a dance floor to a pottery studio, and in May is offering classes in everything from bagpipe lessons to hip-hop dance to creative writing.
And, of course, there are many art classes, taught by Olsen and Dwight Billedeaux.
Borden, who moved to the Mission Valley three years ago and plays with the Missoula Symphony, says she wanted to leave money to help start a cultural center to serve people from Polson to Arlee, then decided, “Why wait until I die to do it?”
With Olsen's help they launched the Red Poppy, and they believe they've discovered a talented young artist in Brown.
Brown says she has no idea what her plans are after she finishes her home-schooling next year.
But now, she says, art school is a definite option.
“A Time Past,” by Alisa Kaela Brown
Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at (406) 319-2117 or at vdevlin@missoulian.com.
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