About

Originally from Baltimore Maryland, she completed her Bachelor Degree of Fine of Art at Cleveland Institute of Art in 2003. After completing her degree she worked for local potters in Baltimore until moving to Rochester to complete her Master Degree of Fine Art in Ceramics at Rochester Institute of Technology, School for American Crafts. After her experience at RIT she began teaching and making work at the Lorton Arts Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia before moving back to Rochester in 2009. In 2009 she became the resident artist at Flower City Arts Center where she continued to make work and teach. Samantha up until recently relocating taught at Genesee Community College, SUNY Brockport, Flower City Arts Center and Studio Sales in Avon.

Samantha makes sculptural and functional work in her studio now in Garrett County, Maryland. Most of her sculptural work focuses on the forms of action and reaction that occur in natural environment. A sense of simultaneous deconstruction and construction—such as what occurs when a mountain slowly weathers or the way that water erodes a stream bed. Given the primary influence of nature, these pieces can be seen as metaphoric landscapes. Samantha creates these clay pieces by exploiting the responsiveness of the clay. She pushes, pulls, and tares the clay in an attempt to create a physical dialogue between herself and the material.

Her functional work is fun and fresh with an attention to detail. Samantha uses a wide range of glazes for her color palette and then layers the surface with unique hand painted brush marks. These marks are very fluid and intuitive. She enjoys layering glazes and washes to create contrasts within the glaze surface. All of her functional works are food, dishwasher, microwave and oven safe.