November, the month of tattoo.
It's that time again-- Bored in the Basement has a new Featured Artist and some new super-exclusive designs for you to feast your eyes on, internet! Fair warning: if you're the type of person who is of the opinion that tattoos are for criminals and circus freaks, you might want to go ahead and just bypass this during your browsing. (Then again, if you're that type of person, you probably wouldn't have made it to this part of the website anyhow. My mistake. Please, carry on.)
If you've decided to stick around, then please allow us to introduce Mike Latessa-- tattoo artist and, lately, t-shirt designer extraordinaire! He's local to Tom & Ant so that explains how they managed to talk him into designing the shirts for this month, but since some of you guys might not know who he is we subjected him to a round of asinine questions and have compiled his responses in one convenient location for your reading pleasure. You'll notice that Mike's t-shirt designs are very tattoo-esque, and if you head over to his Facebook or Myspace you can see more examples of similar types of art. Mr. Latessa says that he has always enjoyed drawing but it wasn't until he spent a brief period of incarceration that a tattoo artist (who was a fellow inmate) took a liking to his art and began teaching him how to tweak his style of drawing to make it a little more appropriate for tattooing. Mike says he knew he'd found his calling in life, and after his release he set about getting himself the proper training and guidance on realizing his dream of becoming a tattoo artist. (Coincidentally, it was also at this point that he actually got his first tattoo, which he tells us was a "13" on his right forearm.) He managed to get hooked up with Kevin Rehbein who, Mike says, taught him all the "tricks of the trade." Mike worked for another shop for a while that ended up closing eventually, at which point he figured that was as good a time as any to open up his own shop! Quite an accomplishment and commitment, considering that some artists work for decades before ever owning their own businesses. He does say that in time he wants to work at another shop again for a few days a week, as well as run his own establishment. We'd like to wish him luck with that, as it sounds as if he'll have a very full plate! When you go and check out Mike's work. Because you are going to do that, right? Right. Ok. Anyhow. Like we were saying, when you go and check out Mike's work, tattoos and drawings alike, you'll notice that the majority of his work is done in black and gray. He says that this is because, while he has nothing against color drawing or tattoos, he feels as if black and gray allows for more expression of emotion and drama. (So you can rest assured that when you're sporting your new t-shirt, it will adequately express how you're feeling at any given time!) He tells us that generally he draws in pencil but has more recently gotten into using charcoal and paints and would like to eventually begin to use airbrushing to create his designs and artwork. We also wanted to know if he'd ever done any type of designs that were specifically for clothing before, and what adjustments-- if any-- he had to make to his unique drawing style in order to make the designs more appropriate for screen printing. Mike says that no, he'd never done any designs for any type of clothing before and that it actually was quite an adjustment he had to make, being that he's extremely detail oriented.. Some designs just do not translate properly into a medium like screen printing. As you can see, however, he still managed to create some pretty visually stunning stuff for us this month!
As far as Mike's inspirations go, he names several well known and respected names in the tattoo industry such as Victor Portugal, Guy Aitchison, and Cory Miller. As well as a few local influences. And while a lot of artists tend to use music to sort of jump start the creative juices, he says he doesn't really have much of a preference as to what tunes are spinning while he's drawing, that he just does it when the mood strikes. He did say that when he's tattooing an actual living being, he is gracious enough to find some sort middle ground as far as a soundtrack for the process. To begin wrapping up our interview, we implored Mike to answer a question that had been weighing on our minds: for a million dollars, would he cut off his bottom lip? With the stipulation, of course, that he could not use his million dollars to have the lip reattached or reconstructed in any way. Some people answer this question very hastily, jumping at the chance to become a millionaire, without first considering the myriad tasks that your bottom lip is actually involved in. Mike, on the other hand, must have pondered his response for a moment because his answer was no. As he so wisely reasons, there are plenty of ways to get a million dollars that do not involve the loss of a bottom lip. Touche`, Mr. Latessa. Touche`. And for our final question, we couldn't resist tossing an age-old query out, hoping on a wing and a prayer that Mike would be the person who could finally answer it for the world. No, we didn't want to know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, and we were uninterested in whether the chicken or the egg came first. Nay, our question was a simple one... "Did that hurt?" We waited with baited breath for an answer that, alas, never came. We thank you for your time and your talent all the same, Mr. Latessa. (Also for your tolerance for our interview process!) As for you, internet.. Well, we see what you did there, and we've got our eye on you. Until next time,
RR
