UNTAPPED TALENT: ADAM BROUILLETTE

A LOT OF KIDS CAN'T WAIT TO STOP PLAYING WITH TOYS AND START BEING SERIOUS ADULTS. THIS MONTH'S UNTAPPED TALENT IS NOT ONE OF THOSE KIDS. BREAK OUT THE MENTAL PLAY-DOH AS OUR LITTLE HOAGIE TALKS ART, ACTION FIGURES, AND IMAGINATION WITH ADAM BROUILLETTE.
Adam places a small Iron Giant figure on the ground between himself and hoagie, saying that it’s his friend and confidence builder.
hoagie: I can’t believe you brought The Iron Giant. That’s pretty sweet.
Adam: Well, you have to have confidence.
h: My dad’s friend, cap’n booty, loves The Iron Giant. I think he’s kind of old to be playing with toys, but he likes them.
A: It’s understandable. It’s an awesome movie.
h: Yeah it is. Alright, here we go with the questions. Don’t be mean to me, because I’m a child. Or you can be mean to me, and I’ll start crying.
A: (laughs)
h: How old are you?
A: Uh, 21.
h: Does that mean you’re a grown-up?
A: (laughing) No. I won’t be that for a long time.
h: Okay. How do you spell your name? I’m a kid. I can’t spell.
A: (laughs) Adam B. That’s good enough.
h: Do you like to draw?
A: Yeah. I like to draw.
h: I’ve seen your stuff around a lot. What’s it all about?
A: Um,.. would a ten-year-old girl ask that question?
h: No, she wouldn’t. Let’s skip that one. Alright. If you could draw a picture for anyone in the whole wide world, who would it be?
A: Probably my mom.
h: To put on her fridge?
A: Yeah. I mean, just to give her. I’m already drawing her pictures anyway.
h: I’m trying to come up with some follow-up about cookies or something.
A: For you to get fed?
h: Yeah.
A: Once you get into college you really want mom’s cookies. Oh, wait a minute. What’s college, right?
h: Yeah. I’m more worried about passing the sixth grade.
A: Sixth grade’s tough, too. Draw your mom pictures and she’ll get you cookies.
h: I tried that. It doesn’t work with my mom.
A: What do you draw?
h: I draw my cat named Benjamin. That’s about it. I have to draw Kung Fu Bus Boy for my dad this issue, and I think it’s stupid. Kung Fu Bus Boy never does anything. He’s a kung fu master, but he never fights anybody.
A: Yeah, that’s kinda odd.
h: Maybe you could help me. You draw pictures of ninjas. Should I have him fight a ninja or something?
A: Yeah. Maybe me and you could work on a piece, like Benjamin the cat and ninjas. That’d be good.
h: Can you drive a car?
A: I can. But I drive a van.
h: Is it a green van?
A: No. It’s red. It’s got drums in it.
h: Like music drums?
A: Yes. Do you want to play them?
h: I’ll have to ask my mom first. But if she says, “yes,” I’ll come back and do it. I play a mean Steely Dan ballad.
A: (laughing) Kids love Steely Dan.
h: They do! Hey, a couple years ago, my dad’s friend, vinnie, hit a car and made it flip over.
A: I hit a car two days ago.
h: Sweet! Did it flip over?
A: No, it didn’t flip over. But the guy that got out of the car I hit is an illegal alien with a felony record. The car was stolen and he was driving with no insurance. So I got off.
h: What’s a felony?
A: It’s when someone does something really bad and they get punished for it. Only, in this case, the man ran away, because he’s a very bad man.
h: Well, I hope they catch him before he steals something from someone else.
A: He works at McDonald’s, so you probably shouldn’t go there.
h: My parents don’t let me eat McDonald’s. They say there’s cow poop in the burgers.
A: There is. It’s bad.
h: One time I ate McDonald’s and pooped green for a week.
A: Uh,..
h: Sorry. Next question: Why do you paint all these funny little people doing all this stuff?
A: To make people happy. I suppose that’s the easiest answer.
h: Well, I think some grown-ups are gonna read this, so you can give me a hard answer. If I don’t understand it, that’s okay. I’m just gonna write down what you say and let them figure it out.
A: Okay. By limiting visual information, I’m attempting to subvert distraction to the ideas I have presented. I’m trying to communicate universals in my work through a series of graphic manipulations.
h: Um,.. moving on; when you paint, do you listen to Britney Spears or Spice Girls?
A: Oh Jesus. No.
h: Good, because they’re sucky. What do you listen to?
A: Well, sometimes I listen to music and sometimes I watch movies. Sometimes I’ll listen to Radiohead, or Refused or Braid. And then other times I’ll watch movies, like Star Wars. I watch that a lot; like five or six times a month. The whole Trilogy, including Episode I.
h: Damn! I mean, darn.
A: Yeah. Little girls aren’t supposed to say “damn.”
h: Sorry.
A: And then I’ll watch Edward Scissorhands and The Iron Giant.
h: What is it about those sort of movies that makes you watch ‘em so much?
A: They stir up my imagination. Imagination is really important and I think everybody should remember that. Being able to watch somebody else’s way that they communicate ideas,.. something as silly as Edward Scissorhands,.. I mean, that’s a real silly idea, but he’s kinda neat. I think those kind of things communicate to people. Same with Star Wars. To some people it’s just laser guns in space. But at the same time, there’s a whole romantic fairy tale quality to it. And I think people like fairy tales.
h: What’s your favorite fairy tale?
A: All my favorite fairy tales are Greek myths, I guess. Hmm,.. my favorite fairy tale is probably Star Wars. I can’t think of an old fairy tale, right off the bat, that strikes me as much as that movie does.
h: This eighth grader at my school says that Star Wars is totally based on some old myths or something called Jason and the Argonauts.
A: Those kinds of things like The Odyssey, The Iliad, Clash of the Titans,.. I like all those. Not just fairy tales, but when you read books about fairies or goblins. I like Lord Of The Rings. Not just because it’s a new movie that came out, but because it’s a really phenomenal and awesome book that came out a long time ago. It’s total imagination. Tolkien created this entire world of sub-cultures of people. I mean, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek,.. people live off of that. They get totally engulfed in this culture, and it’s total make-believe. That has to show that somebody cares about imagination somewhere. Everybody should care about imagination. I watch things that make me imagine things. Whether it’s a bad movie or a good movie-- if it stirs up my imagination, it’s valuable to watch. That’s why I rent lots of bad movies.
h: Ha! I know all about that. My dad loves this movie called Leprechaun In The Hood. It’s rated R, but he still let me watch it.
A: (laughing) That movie’s terrible.
h: Yes it is. That green midget-guy is scary. So what’s it like to be an artist?
A: It’s fun. It’s nice not to have a “real” job.
h: Like working at the bank?
A: Yeah. I get paid to draw pictures, which is really awesome. And, as long as it keeps happening, I’d love to keep doing it. And I think that everybody should want to do the same thing. Everybody should want to chase dreams. I’ve wanted to do this since I was your age. What do you want to do?
h: I don’t know.
A: You wanna be Chinese?
h: Yes! I wanna be wayne chinsang, because he’s got cool hair! No. Maybe I can grow up to be an artist.
A: You’ll be poor. You know that, right?
h: Do I have to eat my broccoli?
A: No. Broccoli is from outer space.
h: That’s what I thought.
A: There’s a book called Real Kids Don’t Eat Broccoli. I suggest you read it.
h: You see, I don’t want to be a nurse or something stupid like that because the doctors force them to eat broccoli.
A: That’s why they all have crazy hair. It’s like a mullet.
h: Uh-huh. Nurse-mullet. Hey! Susie told Jason, and Jason told Mindy. Then Mindy told me that Susie has a crush on you. But I think Susie has cooties! Do you think she does?
A: I don’t know about cooties, but I heard Crystal wants to fight Susie.
h: Oh no. Is Crystal that fat girl in fifth period?
A: No. That’s my girlfriend.
h: Aw, you got a girlfriend. Oooo!
A: She has cooties. But I got stuck with them, so I’ve got cooties too. I heard that the older boy in sixth grade with the red hair is a “hot item.”
h: Whatever! Boys are gross! They smell funny. Now for a serious question: Do you know why the Easter Bunny brings kids eggs instead of carrots?
A: This is another situation where I could go into a long line of mythology.
h: What’s mythology?
A: It’s when a boy and girl look at each other and decide they want to have babies.
h: Actually, that goes with another question I have. Where do babies come from?
A: Ask the Easter Bunny. You wanna know what’s really in the eggs? Most of the time when you’re eating eggs, you’re eating babies.
h: Whoa! Will The Tooth Fairy give me more money for each tooth as I get older?
A: Yes. But at some point you’ll run out of teeth.
h: What if I started taking my neighbor’s teeth and putting those under my pillow?
A: That sounds good.
h: I really like Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein’s stuff a lot. What people do you like?
A: I would say my main art influences would be Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, Bill Watterson (who draws Calvin and Hobbes), and Tim Burton. I hate to admit it but, at points, even people like Walt Disney and Hanna and Barbera influence me, even though I don’t like a lot of the aspects of their stuff. They’ve done exactly what I’m trying to do, by making simple images that communicate to a lot of people. They just made it have to do with money.
h: Well, my daddy tells me that money is important, but it’s not the main thing. What really matters is doing something you like.
A: Money itself isn’t a bad thing. But when it has to deal with tricking people into giving you their money and making people buy stuff they don’t really need, that’s when it gets bad. It’s the commercialization of things that makes it bad. If Walt Disney was drawing pictures and giving them to people, it would be a lot different than him mass producing something to sell to people. It just takes on a different aspect. It’s very impersonal. I try to keep my work more personal. I don’t like replicating. I won’t make the same picture twice for two different people. I don’t like doing that. I may use the same ideas and draw them in different ways. But if someone’s gonna give me money to draw them something, I make it for them.
h: I saw some pictures you did with animals and people in a zoo. Why’d you paint all that?
A: Well, you know how we look at animals in cages when we go to the zoo?
h: Um-hmm.
A: Well, sometimes we look at people the same way and we put them in different groups. I thought it was kind of an interesting thing, so I wanted to make a picture of how we put things in categories and put them in their own boxes. And then, as a whole, we can call it a zoo. But, individually, there are little things that you need to pay attention to, like each animal and each person.
h: Wow. That’s a good answer. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: I don’t want to grow up. Your age is more fun than my age. Trust me. You don’t have to deal with as much money.
h: But I need money to buy toys and comics.
A: Have your parents buy them. (laughs) That’s what I’m trying to go for. That’s the whole reason for graduating college, is hoping to get money so that I can buy more Star Wars toys. I’ve got a collection. Star Wars toys are good. Buy them. Now I’m getting back into the whole commercialization thing.
h: What’s commercialization?
A: Nevermind.


FOR MORE INFO AND ARTWORK, CONTACT ADAM AT GEMINIMOON112@HOTMAIL.COM