We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Craig Muderlak a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Craig, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Taking risks has been a big part of my life’s trajectory. Not only do I work as an an artist, but I’m also a mountain guide (I take people rock climbing, mountaineering, and backcountry skiing). As a mountain guide, there is a certain amount of inherent risk in my career – these risks are mostly objective (rockfall, avalanches, crevasses, etc). As an artist, the risk is more subjective like creating something you or others don’t like and feeling vulnerable with sharing yourself in this way. With both of these careers, there is risk associated with financial stability – it’s quite difficult to make a living doing both. I didn’t intentionally choose “risky” careers.” In a sense I feel like they chose me. I’ve always been drawn to adventure, and while climbing and art are very different types of adventures they are also similar in many ways. Both pursuits are motivated out of a deep passion and my art is inspired by my connection to the outdoors and both require being okay with the unknown and taking risk head on.

Craig, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a artist and mountain guide based out of Washington State. I

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I went back to graduate school for art about 12 years ago. At the time I was working as an outdoor educator, leading long wilderness climbing and whitewater expeditions for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and continue to create art on the side mostly for myself. I figured it was time for a change, to try going back to school, hopefully leading to a more stabile, sustainable career. I gave it a year and I absolutely hated it. I felt like I was spending too much time trying to make art suitable for the academic art world and also researching, theorizing and writing more than actually making art. The transition from NOLS to grad. school was difficult and it was important to me to give it a solid chance. However, after a year I was still very unhappy with the program. As it turned out, art school and art are to very different things and the prior was not for me. I quit grad-school and went back to NOLS. During a three-week NOLS climbing course in Arizona. During my down time, I would work on the art and store them inside my tent. Following the course, I spent a few more weeks finishing up the series and eventually had a solo exhibit in Boulder, Colorado. This process kind of solidified the idea that I wanted to be making art on my own terms, not within the boundaries of an academic pedagogy. From there, over the years I began to solidify my professional art practice leading to where I am today, making a living as an artist, creating the artwork that inspires me.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The only real goal of my creative journey is to continue surrounding myself with the activities and spaces that inspire me and to be able to share this with others. The more time I can either spend outside climbing, skiing, and exploring wilderness or being creative, the better. I’ve worked many different types of jobs during my life from teaching in the classroom, cooking in restaurants, construction, and retail, and I’ve always had a difficult time with any type of regular 9-5 job where I’m not able to express myself or feel passionate about what I’m doing. I’m very fortunate and privileged to be able to work as both a mountain guide and artist. Time in the mountains feeds that part of me that needs adventure and many of my best creative ideas and brainstorming happen while I’m guiding. In that way, the guiding and art complement each other well.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.muderlakart.com
• Instagram: @muderlakart
• Facebook: Muderlak Art
• Twitter: @muderlakart

Image Credits
Image 4 (me ice climbing) : David Fay Image 6 (me making art in blue coat) : Conor Litchman Image 7: Me making art with orange rope: Christopher Freeman