Meet The Innovator: Matt Burke of Strained Memory

We've teamed up with the innovators, the makers, and the doers who use our blanks to build something bigger than a brand. Because we believe that when you are creating something, you are propelling the creativity of the future.

Meet Matt Burke.

An artist, screen printer, storyteller and founder of Strained Memory, a brand based in Tallahassee, Florida. What started as a way to get his hands dirty again— after decades of his photography work collecting dust, sitting on hard drives-turned into a new form of art. Something people wear, ask for, and connect with.

From printing t-shirts with his thumbprint in the ink, to documenting overlooked pieces of Tallahassee history on social media, Matt's work is personal, layered, and is leaving a lasting impression on his community.

We asked Matt to tell us his story.

How did you get started screen printing?
I have been a photographer for the last 20 years, and honestly I got sick of all of my work just sitting on hard drives and going unappreciated. I really just wanted to get my hands dirty again —literally, metaphorically, whatever you want to say.

Actually being able to print something tangible that I can see, that I can wear, that other people can see and wear...When I'm printing stuff-like this shirt, for example, the green at the bottom of the shirt gets printed first. When I print this green, I put my thumb on it to see if it's dry before I put the other color on it. So literally every single shirt that I have ever put out has my thumbprint in the ink on it. For somebody like me, that's just really important.

Where did the idea for the Tallahassee videos come from?
Since Tallahassee is mainly Florida State University's hub, there's not so much of a population here in town that lives here year-round and for long periods of time. So a lot of the historical stuff about this city— a lot of the historical buildings, a lot of the really cool things that have happened here-just kind of fall by the wayside, because once that group of people leaves town, so does the story. I didn't want that to continue happening.

So I just started paying attention to the stuff that was happening around me and figured if I'm this interested in it, there's gotta be at least a handful of other people that are probably interested in the comings and goings of what's going around in their own city. So I started making the videos and looking up different stuff and snowballing my way through that. And it has proven to be a very popular little addition to the city of Tallahassee lately.

How did you discover Lane Seven?
I used to work at a commercial screen printing shop for about a year or so. My job at that print shop was working in receiving, so I spent all day long just getting boxes and boxes and boxes of apparel dropped at my feet.

I remember the day that the Lane Seven Cloud Black Vintage Tee came in. It was one shirt sitting in a box a couple feet away from me. It caught my eye.

I had previously been using a different brand for tie-dye stuff, and I had been looking for a new brand to use— either tie-dye, mineral wash, or some sort of an acid wash. So as soon as that Cloud Black Vintage Tee came across my eyesight, I immediately walked over to it and grabbed it and felt how soft it was.

It was at that moment that I realized that I needed to figure out a design that would work on that blank. There was one shirt that I did put on it that I still really enjoy on it, but then there was a second shirt that I was working on, and when I printed that one as a one-off for a friend of mine, it let me know that that was the new shirt for that design—and I have not turned back since.

Lane Seven is genuinely the softest of the "mainstream," I guess, blanks that are coming out. They have a genuine vintage feel to them that a lot of these other vintage shirts just don't have. I want to get a Ramone shirt out of a bin at a Goodwill because... I don't care that it's a Ramone shirt. I want that vintage cotton. I want that beat up old, old cotton. And these Lane Seven shirts feel like that right out of the box. I don't like to break in a T-shirt. I just want to put it on and have it be comfortable. Lane Seven is my premium brand at this point. I just love what you guys are doing.

What was the first moment that made you feel like things were clicking?
This Tallahassee shirt. This was the first shirt that I had designed for me and started printing for my brand. I mainly got it made because I just wanted a shirt like this. I've seen the Welcome to Las Vegas shirts, the Yellowstone National Park shirts, and I wanted Tallahassee to have something like that.

I ended up in the summer of 2023 going out to Woodward West, an action sports camp in California, and while I was out there, my fiancée stayed here in Tallahassee and was continuing to sell all of the stuff that I had made prior to leaving. I think that she did somewhere between four and five markets while I was gone, and at each market that she went to, more and more people were showing up wearing this shirt, asking for this shirt, just wearing different stuff that I had been making, and coming up and asking when I would have new stuff.

I was getting text messages and pictures and videos of this-literally 3,000 miles away, not even being here for it-and having people still coming up and keeping that wheel moving. I've just continued to have those moments as this has grown and grown. It never gets old seeing your own personal growth. It's awesome.

Who is an innovator that has inspired you along the way?
A guy who goes by the name Bryan Kienlen. He's the bass player of a band called The Bouncing Souls from New Jersey.

I first got into The Bouncing Souls in 1994 when I was 11 years old, and so that band has had an absolute chokehold on me for the last 30 years or so. I've always been drawn to people that do things themselves, that knows what they want and goes for it. Bryan from The Bouncing Souls has always done that for me.

I've followed him since I started following the band, since social media became a thing. And through the years, I slowly kind of started to realize that there's parts of my path that remind me of things that l've seen as I've been paying attention to his path-covering almost everything from artwork to fashion to music.

What do you do when you're not innovating?
I like to walk around in the woods, if we're being honest. There are 100 parks in the city of Tallahassee, and Tallahassee is a very, very small city. So having a hundred parks here is pretty crazy and pretty awesome.

Sometimes I'll walk around playing disc golf in the woods. Sometimes I'll just walk around with my fiancée. And sometimes I'll just throw some headphones on and get lost-forest bathing, as it's called.

What keeps you going when things get tough?
Pure, unadulterated 1980s ADHD that I have been dealing with and suffering through for my entire life. I'm a big fan of proving people —myself included —wrong. So if I've got something going on, if there's something in my mental that's telling me that I can't do it, if there's outside people telling me that whatever my crazy thought or dream or hope or project is, if it's not gonna work, I'm going to make sure that it does, or I'm going to die trying.

When things do get difficult and I have any sort of inkling that I want to give up, I tend to go a little bit harder at that point-really just to prove to myself that I can do it and prove to other people that I'm capable of doing whatever the hell I want.

If you could tell your past self one thing, what would it be?
All of my weird little ideas... all of the things that are very interesting to me, that I think are super awesome, are very likely also gonna be interesting to other people. If you're trying to find your community and find the people that you want to spend your time with, you have to be as authentic to yourself and the things that you enjoy and the things that you want out of life in order to get the things that you want out of life.

Keep thinking my weird little thoughts. Keep doing my weird little things. Eventually I'm gonna meet my people. Eventually you are gonna meet your people. And the world will start to make a little bit more sense at that point. And I'm still waiting for the world to start making a little bit of sense. But I have finally started to find my people.

What's next for you and Strained Memory?
That I can just kind of keep my head down and keep it going for as long as possible. Since I started doing what I'm doing, I have pivoted to more of a Tallahassee and North Florida-based design work and things along those lines. I am just looking forward to not only learning more about the city that I call home, but also sharing that information with the people that live in the area.

I am excited about getting out to some of these markets and festivals and events that I have coming up. Because as much as I am not the most social person, having those interactions with actual human beings in the flesh is something that really keeps me going and really lets me know that what I'm doing is having an impact outside of my own brain.

More so than anything-that I just continue to enjoy it as much as I am right now. And continue to bring that enjoyment to other people as well. Because I've been finding out in my older age that making other people happy makes me incredibly happy. So as long as I can keep that going, things will be all good.

Click here to watch Matt Burke's full interview with Lane Seven. You can find him at www.strainedmemory.com and @strainedmemory on Instagram.