Canvas of Conversation: Adamtastic's Art of Listening |

By @JustinWetch

Adam thought he was going to be an electrical engineer. Three years of engineering classes in high school. It was fine.

Then senior year, he took an art class.

"I was like, 'Why haven't I done this all along?' I was hooked."

The foundation had been there all along. His parents took him to museums as a kid, let him be himself. Stuffed animals everywhere, cartoons that respected their audience.

"Sesame Street was a huge influence. It's a small miracle I don't work with puppets directly right now."

He still keeps puppets within arm's reach in his studio. He loved programs that taught lessons without talking down to kids.

"Those shows didn't treat kids like they were dumb. There was a respect there."

His parents backed the pivot to art. He went to school for animation, got his master's, and they never squashed the dream.

Adam's wife got him his first industry job. She was working at a multimedia company called All Things Media. They needed an animator. She said her boyfriend could do that.

Not long after, Adam heard about a radio station contest for animated shorts. He was fresh out of animation school. Hungry. He rallied the entire team of eight people and started production.

He didn't ask permission.

"One night the bosses walk in and we're all working late. They're like, 'What are you guys working on?' We said, 'Oh, a cartoon for this contest.' They're looking at me like, 'The new guy just took our entire team for his own project.'"

They tried to let him go. The project he'd been hired for was over anyway, so it would be a clean break.

Adam didn't accept that.

"I was like, 'How about no? How about I don't leave?'"

He made them a deal. If the team won, he'd stay. They could even keep the prize money. If they lost, he'd walk.

"They didn't know what to say. I basically got fired but refused to walk out."

They won first place.

"They were like, 'Oh, shit.' They let us keep the money and they let me keep my job."

From that moment, Adam was there for fifteen years. He built their entire video and animation department. The company grew from eight people to seventy-five. He rose to Creative Director.

But something was missing. The work paid the bills, but it wasn't his.

"I enjoyed it, but I wanted more. I wanted to make more art."

Before NFTs, the idea of a sustainable art career never crossed Adam's mind. Galleries wanted physical paintings. Digital work got rejected on principle.

"Any time I was in a gallery show, up front they'd say, 'This has to be a physical painting. No digital.' There was such a pushback against digital art."

Then, late 2020, he saw his friend Bryan Brinkman post something strange. A cute character with a caption full of buzzwords: blockchain, smart contracts, Art Blocks.

Adam messaged him immediately. Explain this.

@bryanbrinkman walked him through everything: wallets, MetaMask, how to connect a bank account. Adam filled pages with handwritten notes, staying up until two or three in the morning, night after night. He knew he couldn't miss this wave.

The Clubhouse era followed. The pandemic had everyone stuck at home, and audio rooms ran twenty-four hours straight with moderators tagging in and out. Artists and collectors were learning together in real time.

"The playing field was level for the first time. You'd be in rooms with your neighbors and celebrities, and nobody really knew anybody yet."

Earlier this year, Adam was invited onto a podcast. Audio only. While they talked, he drew. Afterwards, he looked at the work and noticed something different about it.

"The realization was that I'd had a conversation with someone and it changed things. Changed the perspective of the art."

He wondered what would happen if he did it intentionally. He pitched the idea to his friend @Coldie as an experiment. One hour. Private video call. Adam would make art while they talked.

"It was a ton of fun. Way more fun than I even thought it was gonna be."

He kept going. Friends first, then strangers through auctions. The project became The Conversation and subsequently Conversation Starters.

The format is simple: one hour, unrecorded, completely private. The participant can talk about anything while Adam translates what he hears into shapes and colors on canvas.

"I do it intending to let someone speak freely and not worry about being on the record. If someone's going to open up to me, I open up to them as well."

Some sessions go dark. Heavy. Personal. Adam doesn't shy away from that.

"If someone goes to that vulnerable place, it means we got there together. There's a mutual trust."

One session, a participant's child kept interrupting because childcare had fallen through. Every time the kid needed attention, Adam marked it on the canvas with a tick of color in a specific spot.

Those marks became part of the piece. And they became the parent's takeaway.

After each session, the participant chooses a section of the finished painting that resonates with them. Adam prints it and ships it to them. The main artwork might sell or get minted. Each artwork is minted and sold to the participant who had the conversation. But they keep a piece of it. A literal slice of their conversation.

"The art is the record. The piece itself holds the memory of the conversation."

Adam calls The Conversation an antidote to the algorithm age, with its surface-level engagement, curated personas, and relentless speed.

"We have video phones in our pockets. When I was a kid that was a futuristic dream. And yet so often we just text instead of call. We default to the easiest thing."

He took a virtual tour of the Van Gogh Museum recently. What struck him wasn't the famous work but everything else: studies, experiments, pieces nobody associates with Van Gogh today. Some of it was really not good. Each time Van Gogh thought he'd found his style, critics shot him down.

He kept going anyway. Artists don't choose what they're known for. They just make what's true to them.

"So many artists are afraid to switch things up because 'What if people don't like me anymore?' Sadly, that fear holds people back."

Adam would rather evolve and surprise people than stay in one box for the algorithm.

"Even if nobody sees it, even if you lose the people who were following you. At the end of the day, if you're making art for yourself and it fulfills you, that's the win."

Adam shouts out Bryan Brinkman ("supported me from the jump"), @missweinstock ("owns all three of my Mistaken Beliefs pieces and a bunch of other art"), @RTFnfa ("five years of ride-or-die support"), and @dave_krugman ("always been supportive, collecting my stuff and writing about it").

Artists inspiring him lately: @aylaelmoussa ("I watch what she does and I respect it"), @ThankYouX ("whenever I see him making moves I'm like, damn, I gotta step up my game"), RocketGirl ("more people need to know her"), and @BHAREBOY ("every time he posts something, I literally feel like stopping whatever I'm doing and painting").

What does he wish people understood? That the work comes from a genuine desire for connection.

"I want my work to allow people a moment of introspection. Take a moment, sit with the art. That's what I hope comes across."

Not every piece is for everybody. But each piece is for somebody. That moment when someone scrolls through his work and suddenly stops. "Ooh, that one."

That's the point. That's why he does this.

For future Weekly Dose episodes, Adam recommends @rocketgirlART, @EfdotStudio, and @VinnieHager.