We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Colt Maule a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Colt, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I grew up in the San Bernardino mountains of Southern California and I was always outside playing in the woods. It was myself and my brother riding our bikes, hiking our dogs, fishing at the lake, and enjoying the forests we were surrounded by. At the times of year when I wasn’t in school, I was fortunate enough to vacation to different National Parks in the West. My parents had a great appreciation for the outdoors and that grew within me. My dad was into photography and gifted me with an old Nikon film camera. That camera helped shift my perspective of the landscape that I was surrounded by and instead of just playing in the woods, I learned how to observe. I remember during one winter storm, I was sitting in the forest behind my childhood home enveloped in a silent blizzard for hours, bundled up with camera in hand waiting to capture a photo of a coyote. I was enraptured with how the large flakes and deep snow dampened any noise; I was in a silent snow globe. I never did get a photograph of a coyote that day, but I was learning about living with intention and living in the moment. I was so fortunate to have the experience of being out there by myself in the elements, blending in and observing, learning to commune with nature. That moment was a pivotal point that started to shape me into the man I have become and has inspired the art that I create. A camera has been a constant companion of mine and has accompanied me on adventures into the backcountry from that day on; I feel naked without one. I knew exactly what I wanted to do in life that day; I wanted to be an artist and capture the wild landscape. At such a young age, I was naive to the realization of how long the road to becoming an artist would be…
Shortly after this defining moment, my mother was diagnosed with Lymphatic Cancer. Both my parents were constantly at the hospital for her treatments and often my brother and I were home alone without freedom to hike, ride bikes, or go fishing. I became introverted and focused on creating art and spent most of my time in the library reading books about wild animals and wild places. Photography and film development, ceramics, charcoal, colored pencil, oil paint, acrylic paint, linoleum block print, woodworking- I learned it all. I painted a large mural in a classroom at my high school and even I won awards for poetry. Art became my life and it was all I thought about – what a beautiful mind space to be in. Within two years of being diagnosed, my mother passed away from the cancer that consumed her life. I was in my senior year of high school and had been awarded a few art scholarships to help with college, but my family was shattered, fractured, no longer a whole. Life wasn’t the same and I decided to move out and start on my own independent path. Creating art continued for awhile, and I even got a couple of years of higher schooling completed, but eventually college and art seemed like a waste of time when I needed to figure out how to pay for my next meal and all of the costs with living on my own. The creative beauty within my mind slowly slipped away, retreating, recessed into a dark corner, as it was filled in by adult life responsibilities. I truly became lost. I no longer knew what I wanted to do in life but I knew I would one day, far in my future, be led back to creating art.
Now in present day, after a lifetime of a million choices, I have come full circle again to that dream, that mindset of exploring the depths of my imagination and vision in a creative way. The school of life and experience has broadened my creative horizons and when I look at objects, materials, elements, I see unique and original artwork to potentially create, an endless supply of components to repurpose and reclaim. It allows me inexhaustible possibilities to see outside the box and hopefully create art that is relatable to a wide variety of people in a fresh and original way.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’ve had multiple careers in life- bike mechanic, fire fighter, professional athlete, wayfarer, film maker, sawyer, business owner and ultimately, a student of life. All these vocations have given me different skill sets that now allow me to broaden my horizons when it comes to artistic expression and innovativeness. The process of creation for me is as unique and outside the boundaries of the steps that you would normally expect an artist to take to complete a piece of art. I am one feral human being. I am part-civilized and part-wild, just like the world around me and just like my art. From start to finish, I create nearly every link in the chain of creation that ultimately results in the finished piece of art. That process in itself is anything but typical. I live very humbly. I lack running water and electricity. My pyrography pen is powered by a solar battery that feeds itself with sun rays. My shop is a 20 foot off grid shipping container nestled in the Rocky Mountains at nearly 11.000’, with tools powered by a generator. For nearly half the year, my surroundings are covered in feet of snow, blizzards raging around me, each finished piece of art transported for miles down a mountain via snowmobile. To paint, I camp out on our public lands in the warmer Southwest regions because at home I lack a climate controlled environment and am unable to prevent my paintings from freezing. In spite of all these hurdles and challenges, I believe it is very important for every possible aspect of the art to be produced by myself. I desire to be in the mix, creating each piece of art from conception to completion, allowing me to truly be a part of my art. Ultimately, my profession now is to live life to the the fullest and create art.
The future holds my own gallery opening in my hometown of Pitkin, CO in the summer of 2025. (Terrible Mountain Gallery) Hopefully that opportunity will continue to allow me to share art in an impactful way.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Art and creativity have always been a part of my life. Partly because I enjoy using my brain to create and partly out of necessity. However, seeking an artistic career is still something new to me. Although I have desired to pursue a career as an artist since I was a young man, it wasn’t always my sole ambition or pursuit over the previous years because life is full of distractions and lessons that pave the way in the present and for the future, but I knew it would be a culmination of life that would lead me to art. An important quality that has been with me for as long as I can recall is a deep and eternal respect and reverence for wild lands, wild rivers, and wild animals, always whispering to me to celebrate there hallowed existence by creating art that inspires viewers to protect that in which inspired the artwork. I think being able to recognize the importance of our primal roots and interconnectedness with the natural world outside our doorsteps is imperative to the overall health of our world. When I am wandering the wilds I always have the companionship of the camera and when I am in the studio I find solace with the paintbrush, pallet knife, and pyrography pen. These aspirations have done wonders for my mental and spiritual health. Find something you love or are passionate about and pursue it with abandon and determination. Sprinkle in some persistence, perseverance, and a little hard headedness at times and it’s helped get me to different points I want to be in life.
Persist, persevere, never give up, these are key components to accomplishment and success.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
This is a tricky question and one I have pondered and ruminated on many times. I’ve had a career that required the use of my artistic capabilities and creative inventiveness. When I was a professional mountain biker (Projekt Roam) my strengths were riding mountain bikes, film making, editing, and photography. Had I focused on just one of these strengths, I would had probably gone further in that specific career. But this didn’t resonate completely with me. I was still doing something for somebody else, and it only pushed me enough to create, but failed to unlock my creative potential because it wasn’t backed fully by a true inner passion. It was a fun and challenging job, but lacked the depth and true inspiration that comes from within when you are genuinely and whole heartedly invested in what you’re creating. Essentially, I think it’s a balance. Weaker areas in oneself allow room for improvement and growth, and awareness of that I believe is vital to avoid ultimate failure. In order to genuinely succeed, I think you need to focus on your strengths in an area you really want to pursue so you can ultimately be truly successful in a chosen direction.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.terriblemountain.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terrible.mountain/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/terrible.mountain/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Terrible.Mountain
Image Credits
Portrait: Tim Brown Photography
Art Photos: Colt Maule
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