Name? - Craig Daniel Moan

location? - Nashville, TN 

What is your “day job”? - Barista

your art medium? - primarily print but also some web, photo, and acrylic on wood…. I also like building things. I’m starting to do a wall installment in my house..testing out a giant paper airplane bike rack, as well. 

website(s) featuring work? -  www.youngwhale.com

why do you choose to work a menial job? Is it a choice?  - It helps pay the bills and is more consistent than a freelance job. It also takes the pressure off of constantly having to shell out good work for clients and just to make them happy and get by. I find more joy in creating things that I want to create and selling them as my own work rather than making an advertisement for some company. The fact that coffee shops have a special place in my heart helps and I hope to open one, someday. So I guess in some ways it’s not a choice and in some ways it is. 

does your “day job” effect your creativity?  The only time it really effects my creativity is when I am amped up to design something and I have to quit and go into work. It could also happen while I’m at work and I am itching to get home to start something. However, I tend to try to get some design work done while it’s slow at work. The perks of working solo…My laptop is always near me. 

what was your last meal?  My last meal fell on my girlfriend and I’s 6 month anniversary, so we went to a local restaurant in Nashville called Burger Up. It’s the classiest (and probably most expensive) “burger joint” out there. I ordered the Bison Burger with an oatmeal stout to drink. It was probably the best burger I’ve ever had. That place is fantastic. 

two artists that you look up to?  JT Daly is and will always be an inspiration to me. He is the lead singer of a Nashville band called Paper Route. He is a well rounded, hard working creator. If I had his brain and talent…man, oh man. I wish I could give you a link to his site with his design work but he recently took it down, for some reason. The other artist duo that I am inspired by is Aesthetic Apparatus. I had the privilege of seeing them at a conference and their story and creative drive is what freelance designers should be. 

If you could trade places with one living human/ animal for a day who and why would it be? If it’s just for one day, I guess it would have to be someone who lives every day like a crazy adventure. Someone who climbs Mt. Everest or jumps out of helicopters or swims to the depths of the ocean. If it’s just for one day…I would want it to be a day I would never forget. If it was for a lifetime…somebody who does something to effect the world in a positive way. (cliche’, right?) 

What would your “dream” life consist of?  A mid-sized, old and creaky house. I hate large, new houses…they seem so hollow and sterile. I want a house that has been lived in; Where every room has a purpose and that purpose is used regularly.  A wife that I love and a dog..maybe a few kids here and there. But as far as what I would do with my life… I would like to be a musician and tour a few times a year. I would love to own a coffee shop that is full of people who love anything artistic and would come here to sit and create. I would like to still design and oddly enough still have the struggles that I do when it comes to creating; at least a little. Struggle and opposition make the outcome so much more beautiful. Anyway, I would like to design things, print, web, clothing, furniture. It would be wonderful to having a clothing line that is successful, build things…a huge barn full of all types of saws and tools with an endless supply of lumber. I would like to invent one thing that keeps me financially stable for life so I can just spend the rest of my days learning and creating and exploring as much as possible. It would be awesome to be able to just give away things that I create to people who would truly love to make it a part of their life but wouldn’t have the money to purchase it. So I guess to some it up in one word, my dream life would be: creating. I don’t ever want to stop having a passion to create. 

do you like answering random questions? sure.