im right your wrong: Lowercase interview!

I first met Michael Latimer whilst exploring the fecalface website, I saw his art work and it just jumped out at me, I needed to talk to this guy and I desperately wanted to buy one, unfortunately for the both of us it quickly became apparent that there was no way I could afford any of his work, until now. In 2006 Michael launched Lowercase industry

Phil:
hey Mike hows it going?

Michael:
Not too bad sir

Phil:
good good, so for those who dont know you tell us a little bit about yourself

Michael:
nothing overly exiting to tell i'm afraid, I am a scruffy modern gentleman from the north of england that spends too much time alone with his pencil

Phil:
Tis the style of the times, and speaking of style recently you set up lowercase industry, what bought about the decision to do it?

Michael:
well, I have a day job doing straight graphic / web design which can get a bit tedious sometimes, so i've allways needed a kind of vent where i can create things that isnt following anyone elses guidlines. Before i would just create things and not really go anywhere with them I was getting alot of positive comments about my stuff, so i decided to try and actually build something on the back of all this stuff i was making, It was a long process learning the techniques to get my work ready for screen printing onto shirts, finding suppliers that were reliable etc. I'm still learning now, thats one of the great things about it.

Phil:
Yeah I mean we've all walked into shops and bought clothes (hopefully) but to be on the otherside of it, the one making it and selling deffiently looks like a challenge, what does it feel like knowing that people are buying you're hard work?

Michael:
its amazing, its the greatest compliment i can think of and to be honest, it migbht seem like hard work sometimes, but in reality its not at all, i would be making this stuff regardless of wether it went on a shirt or print. Thats what i'd like to think Lowercase Industry stands for, we dont churn products out, everything we put out has been made with love, sounds kind of cheesy i know, but its true I mean, i'm doing a tatoo design for someone at the moment, a full top arm and chest sleeve, its unbelievable that someone would like my style enough to have it permenantly etched into their skin. again, its really flattering.

Phil:
Well you must be doing something right for someone to want to have it with them for the rest of their lives, so how did you get into art?

Michael:
Its been a wierd path really, as a kid i allways drew things. As i got to my mid to late teenage years though i kind of left it behind and kind of stumbled through life not really knowing what i wanted to do with my life.
Iended up working lots of shitty factory jobs and it didnt look good. I think i eventually though enough is enough and really looked hard at what i was good at and how I could use it to do something with. I dimly remembered i used to enjoy art, so i made a decision to take a Multimedia design course in sheffield. It was like someone turning a light back on in my head, I kind of rediscovered that part of myself that would sit creating things for hours on end as a kid. It almost makes me feel quite emotional thinking about it.

Phil:
Yeah I know what its like to work in a factory, I worked in the depo of a company whos name will be with held, my job was to sort out wet crates into different piles, what made it worse was the room was reffigerated, I hated going there and it just made me angry, I was just weekend staff working there full time I'd of gone mad. Even though you hated it do you think working shitty jobs and you're life back then has had an influence on you're art work?

Michael:
definatly, i think everything you do influences what you make and who you are. Some of the jobs i worked were dark, like working in a sandwhich factory with my hands in a bucket of ice cold prawns all night. But i dont regret it at all, its good to go through some kind of struggle, if you look at some people who go straight to art school or whatever, thats all good but what experience have theyhad in life, i mean like real gritty life. Maybe that sounds a bit negative, i dont mean it to be, i just think if you've been out in the world, you are going to have more to say about the world because you've been there in the trenches i didnt so much hate the jobs i was working either, i think i was just a bit blinded to other options at that time

Phil:
Yeah I mean some of the greatest artists I've ever met have had parts of their lives that have been or in some cases are a real struggle, maybe it creates a desire in people to get out of the crappy situation they've ended up being in

Michael:
yeah. i mean i dont want to sound too dramatic about it. It just rienforces what i said earlier about it being a real compliment whenever someone buys a Lowercase shirt or product.

Phil:
yeah well I'm glad things are going so well for you at the moment, so other than you're life what influences you're art work? I mean you've got a ver discint style that always amazes me everytime I look at it.

Michael:
Thanks man, i've allways enjoyed art that has obviously has had alot of time and effort put into it. I remember when i was a kid looking at the "wheres wally" books and being amazed at the complexity of it. Also i like to challenge myself with that style, its almost me Vs the paper, finding ways to interlink the seperate parts into one big piece, its kind of like having a big mind-poo. Thats just one style though, and as much as i love drawing in that style, i do like to explore other techniques. I do love the simplicity and pureness of flat colour and you'll see that in most things i do, which is handy because doing work using flat colour translates well to screen printing i dont really set myself any rigid rules or anything, sometimes i have a definate idea of what i want, other times i'll just start something and see where it goes.

Phil:
As much as I love that style I really love you're other designs like cross off, its even better on a tee, so do you think you're styles going to change over time?

Michael:
Of course it will, i look back at my stuff from 3 years ago and its alot different to what it is now, thats why i love doing what i do, it constantly evolves. It exites me wondering what my next piece of work will be like, and that motivates me to keep making stuff. I do go through stages where i'm not very inspired which is REALLY frustrating but it allways passes.

Phil:
kind of like writers block

Michael:
yeah, i think everyone gets it. I'm hoping that i'll be able to focus on doing my own thing full time soon, i do all this whilst coming home from a day job and that exhausts you alot of the time. if this stuff could be my sole focus, then that would be the icing on the cake really.

Phil:
Well I wish you the best of luck with it, so what do you do with you're free time when you're not working or doing lowercase?

Michael:
if i'm honest it doesnt leave too much free time. I do like the quiet life nowadays and i cant think of anything better than to kick back with my girlfriend and my cat and just relax and watch a film or something like that. I saw a film the other week called "Me and You and Everyone We Know" which was amazing. films like that inspire me to create things.

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