Film. Art. Press.
I’m AJ Palace. Writer, creative director, maker.
Let’s inspire the exact humans you went into business for in the first place.
AJ Palace / Founder + Creative Director
Writer. Artist. Filmmaker.
A very particular kind of attention.
“Wait. That right there. More of that.” That’s usually where the film begins: when someone stops giving me the explanation they’ve practiced and tells me something real.
My career has moved through hair, fashion, buying, business ownership, and film. Each gave me a different education in attention. Behind the chair, I learned to listen to the person underneath the request. In fashion, I learned to make choices. In film, those instincts became decisions about language, performance, image, sequence, and sound.
I can hear a sentence and start seeing the film around it. I can love a shot and still cut it. I know when the music is lying.
I develop concepts, conduct interviews, write, direct, film, and edit. I like being there early enough to ask whether we’re making the right thing, then staying close enough to protect the idea as it becomes real.
Sixteen Found is the studio I built around that instinct. Commissioned films sit alongside my own writing and paintings. I take all of it seriously. I also reserve the right to have a very good time.
Currently booking / Founding offers
01 / Find the story
A private 90-minute story and creative-direction intensive with me. Your founder story, a polished statement, and a written creative brief you can put to work.
$950 · Delivered in three days
Explore The Found Session02 / Make the film
An original film about the human reason your company exists. Story discovery, your interview, a 3–7 minute signature film, and selected short edits.
From $10,000 · Three founding commissions
Explore The Founder FilmFilm. Art. Press.
We find the human reason underneath a company and make a film people can feel. You bring what you’ve built. We find the story, shape the language, and make the film.
Selected WorkPrivate / Three founding sessions
You do not need another person to tell you to post more.
You need someone who can hear when you have accidentally said the whole thing.
A private 90-minute story and creative-direction intensive for founders who are too close to what they built to see what everyone else needs to understand.
We talk until the prepared explanation runs out and the actual story enters the room. Then I give it back to you in a form you can use.
Founding price / $950
“Tell us about your journey”Commissioned / The Founder Film
The Found Session finds the sentence. The Founder Film builds the world around it.
Most founder videos begin with a timeline. Ours begins the moment your voice changes.
The first person who believed you. The year everything nearly disappeared. The completely random detail that explains why this company could only have come from you.
We turn that into one original documentary film people can feel, remember, and send to someone else when the About page is not enough.
Three founding commissions / from $10,000
Original paintings. Raw canvas, fluid color, and an electric interruption.
Original work / AJ Palace
I work with raw canvas and fluid color because I want to see what the material does before I decide what it should become.
The canvas absorbs. Pigment travels farther than I intended. An edge holds in one place and disappears in another. I pay attention to those differences. They give me something to respond to.
I’m drawn to atmospheric neutrals with an electric interruption. I like softness with a defined edge. I want a painting to reward time spent looking at it.
Ask about the workBooks, writing, and original publishing. For children who notice everything and adults who still have questions.
Original / The Thing About…
An illustrated series for children who think deeply and grown-ups who never received good enough answers.
Four books about forever, Christmas, nature, and girl power. An aggressively casual list of the largest possible subjects.
Original property no. 001Also in development / The Middle
My memoir explores love, identity, family, and the unfinished parts of being alive. Writing from inside the experience, while the questions are still open.
Follow the writing
Sixteen Found Studios / Goodrich, Michigan
Sixteen Found Studios
Let me return the favor.
Studio discoveries, things worth reading, and the occasional very good reason to drop what you’re doing and make something.
Leave your email for 16 Things to Try Before You Cry.
Sixteen Found Studios / Film. Art. Press.
Small interventions for when you’ve had quite enough.
Start anywhere. This is not another thing to finish.
Turn off the overheads. Open the curtain. Move a lamp. Give yourself two minutes in lighting that isn’t conducting an interrogation.
Clear a tiny patch of your desk. Put something good there. Let the rest of the room mind its business.
Put on the earrings. Change the shoes. One detail that makes you feel like someone you recognize. No full production required.
Look through a window at the farthest thing you can see for a minute. You have been looking at twelve inches of problem.
Water with ice. Toast on an actual plate. Use the glass you like. You are here; apparently that qualifies as an occasion.
First song meets you where you are. Second changes the temperature. Third gets you into whatever comes next. No need to go directly from despair to disco.
“I cannot keep doing all of this” might contain “I need you to handle dinner.” Give the feeling a sentence someone can act on.
Make something for five minutes without photographing it. A doodle. A sentence. A strange little arrangement. Nobody needs evidence that you enjoyed yourself.
Move the charger. Oil the hinge. Put scissors where you keep needing scissors. Retire one stupid problem permanently.
Find one message thanking you for something you did well. Read it without immediately explaining why it doesn’t count.
A book, a sock, a piece of fruit. Put three things together until you like looking at them. Congratulations, you still have taste.
Fill the kettle. Open the document. Put the thing by the door. Do one favor for the woman who has to wake up and be you again.
“I’m still thinking about how you handled that.” “That sentence was ridiculous.” Tell someone exactly what you noticed. A little proof that we’re paying attention to each other.
Replace “work on website” with “write the first three sentences.” Make the task small enough that you can tell when it’s over.
Whose opinion are you rehearsing against? Name them. Then ask whether they actually get a vote on this particular thing.
Before you stop, write: “Next, I’m going to ______.” Something literal. Tomorrow should not have to reopen the entire investigation.
Still crying? You can have the earrings on and cry. We contain multitudes.
AJ
Sixteen Found Studios