Creative Movement Ambassador: Brian Christianson

Age: 31
Hometown: Missoula, MT
Favorite Coffee: Without a doubt, Bernice's Blend!

How coffee fuels your art/passion? "In my life, coffee is staple. It fuels me always before, sometimes during, and often after a mountain adventure. Two to three times a week, I post up at Bernice's Bakery with local wildlife photographer Cory DeStein for several hours and process images while sipping on Bernice's Blend. They brew it strong! I find that coffee affords me the mental acuity I need to be on my game while shooting and processing photographs."

How does coffee make the world go 'round? "Coffee plays an important role in the way we look at environmental and human rights practices. How the coffee industry practices trend--i.e. fair wages/working conditions, sound environmental practices--is of great consequence for the industry and of notable value for the billions of individuals connected with coffee consumption."

Any current projects? "Currently, I am working on a conceptual landscape photography project for a show in April 2017. The project, entitled 'Six Feet Above', is based on the idea of shooting broad, large-scale landscapes from an elevated position atop a six-foot aluminum ladder. I haul the ladder around the woods, up mountains and into rivers to gain a modified, if somewhat, unusual perspective on traditional landscape shots." 

The Artist and the Athlete. "My first love is mountains. My second love is photography. My love for mountains began with a backpacking trip in Colorado at the start of college and progressed into mountaineering, marathoning and ultra-marathoning. These endurance pursuits wholly consumed me: racing and training, training and racing, that was life."

"My world turned upside down when I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), an autoimmune disease that attacks/degrades the bodies' joints, in my mid-twenties. Reduced to a painful walk and a year of slow recovery, it seemed that my running days were behind me. And they were. But I didn't stop, I re-prioritized: I gave up running, took up mountaineering/power-hiking and added a creative endeavor: photography."
"Seven years later, I have summitted mountains with 2,000-feet of vertical gain or better over 750 times (including Mount Rainier, WA and Gannett Peak, WY). Its addition to my life has lessened the tension of fully depending on my fickle set of legs for fulfillment. Onward and upward!"

Learn more about Brian's work here. 




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