Meet Justin Ware of creativeware in Lincoln Heights

Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Ware.

Justin, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in construction, so I always knew how to build anything. I started to get into robotics work since I was outing the desert next to all the giants like Northrop, Lockheed, later on, SpaceX and XCOR. I just kind of figured I would fall into engineering since I had a good understanding of kinematics and electrical systems.

I went to college for electrical engineering but switched to forensic anthropology in the middle. Needless to say, I didn’t really end up doing either. I probably would have made a bad engineer in the long run since I was always more interested in the aesthetics that none of the other engineers seem to care for.

My road to defense contracts was short-lived, and I almost died in major accident. This put me on a strange path but oddly lead to the right people for where I am now. I started to dive into photography, did that for a while, I still do, but not so much on the commercial level anymore. Did some production, did some music videos.

There was some fun parts to it all, but my main staple was always fabrication and seemed to be where I was most calm and could produce the level of quality that I was happy with. Did more interiors in the beginning, high-end furniture, and lighting.

Lapped back into production for prop pieces although I would say I wouldn’t be the best fit for that either. I kind of have an obsessive level of detail and want things to be perfect and last forever, doesn’t really matter in that field.

Because of all the backlog of artists I worked with I was asked for more art fabrication along the way and that’s kind of the perfect fit for me. I got asked to manage an artist collective and produce for them. I used to do project management for construction, and everything just worked out from a little here and a little there.

So now I run an art fabrication house and manage some very talented artists. We moved in together at a studio and its messy overlapping worlds at times, but there is a beautiful synchronicity to it that really makes sense.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. There are a good seven years missing to my life of just pure failures. Having to learn how to walk again after the accident — not being able to physically dive into what I did before.

Along with all the other mental blocks coming from that. I didn’t have the rich LA family with all the contacts in the world that a lot of the other “artists” in the city seem to have.

So starting off with nothing has the unique set of challenges, I know how to make a project come out right but a lot of times didn’t have access to that equipment or facilities, had to learn how to cheat it.

I started this business because I thought who the fuck would hire me, my past and projects are all over the place. I’d say in the last five years everything fell into place a little more. I mean fell into place with a lot of 14 hour days at seven days a week.

Please tell us about creativeware.
We fabricate, anything really. It’s even moved a bit into a creative agency of sorts. Artists or come to us with a design, typically a loose idea really. Maybe they know what they want it to do or what they want it to kind of look like. We do the rest. There was the furniture design and build work. The interior design work along with that.

There’s the woodworking side, plastics and molds. Used to do a lot more steel fabrication, there’s the photography side, the robotics work. Sometimes it all comes together for one project through like design this commercial, build it and shoot it. What I’m most proud of is that we can do all these things in the house.

That we can walk that line and work in the world of artists, musicians, designers, ad agencies. I think what sets us aside is that point, and that it’s an obsessive nature to make something perfect. Because of the background, the attention to detail is high. I don’t want to make anything that doesn’t last. And because of the past experience, I’m usually able to help walk artists into a slightly different path for the project.

It’s a little bit like a therapy session of what they want and then explain some different tech, application, or process that leads to this redesign of an idea. I don’t know a lot of places that you can go and get as many disciplines in the house that we can offer.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
That’s tough. Seeing the space shuttle land was pretty prominent in mind although fairly common out there. Seeing those planes on the ground and then in the sky was fascinating as a kid. It didn’t make sense that It was possible and there was always a lot of wonder about that.

Contact Info:

• Website: creativeware.la
• Phone: 323-352-3848
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: creativeware

Image Credit:
David Torres

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