by The Green Room at 831

After Hurricane Dorian devastated the island where Samantha Sawyer grew up, she found herself starting over in Florida. The paintings she made afterward would follow her much further than she knew.

In 2019, Samantha Sawyer left home without knowing when, or if, the home she knew would ever feel the same again.

Hurricane Dorian had torn through Abaco as a Category 5 hurricane, destroying Samantha’s high school along with every other high school on the island. She was still a teenager, and instead of returning to the classrooms, people and routines she knew, Samantha relocated with her family to Florida and started over at a new school.

Then she began painting the places she had left behind.

The paintings weren't just records of destruction. Some depicted the damage Hurricane Dorian had left behind, while others focused on familiar landscapes, vibrant color, signs of new growth and pieces of the home Samantha remembered. She had always been the artsy kid, the one who was constantly making something, but until then she hadn't thought too seriously about where painting might take her. Now, in a life that looked nothing like the one she had expected, she was using it to work through what had happened.

“I was searching for hope during such a difficult time,” Samantha says.

Doc Clean Up | Mixed media on canvas | 11 × 14 in

Those paintings became her first meaningful body of work. Looking back, Samantha can recognize early versions of the colors, compositions and subjects that continue to appear in her paintings today.

At the time, though, she wasn’t thinking that far ahead. She was a teenager in a new state, at a new school, trying to figure out what came next.

"Ray of Passage" / Acrylic on canvas with found object / 18x25 in

When Painting Became More Than Something She Loved

Art had been part of Samantha’s life long before the hurricane. She had been close with her art teacher in Abaco, and after moving to Florida she found another teacher who encouraged her to continue. Her new school also offered longer art periods, giving her more time to paint and, for the first time, develop a larger group of work around one idea.

“There really wasn’t and still hasn’t ever been a time where I wasn’t doing something creative,” she says. “I always loved painting, but never thought too deeply about pursuing it as a career.”

That started to change as college approached. Samantha considered several creative majors, but painting was the one she kept coming back to. Her high school guidance counselor recommended Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), and a future built around art began to feel possible.

At the time, Samantha had no idea how many different directions an art career could take her.

There would be painting, yes, but there would also be murals, merchandise, client work, printing, packaging, invoices and a surprising amount of construction. There would be a part-time job alongside it all and, at least for now, there would be a studio squeezed into the garage.

Samantha became a full-time artist in June 2025, while continuing to work part-time with Hope Town Canvas, a local Bahamian business that creates bags from recycled sails.

She manages the company's social media, visiting its studio and boutiques about once a month to photograph and film content. But her connection to the business extends beyond her regular responsibilities. Watching Hope Town Canvas turn an original idea into a growing business has become another source of inspiration for Samantha's own creative career.

Recently, that connection led to a collaboration. Samantha hand-painted a collection of bags, which Hope Town Canvas then sewed into finished products. They're already working on their next collection together.

Samantha Sawyer and Nakia Wong with their hand-painted bag collaboration for Hope Town Canvas.

“I feel like a lot of people assume my schedule looks like I paint all day, every day as my job,” she says. “However, painting is just one component of what I do, and I think this is true for many artists.”

Her version is much less picture perfect.

Samantha owns a large-format printer and produces and packages her prints in-house. She builds stretcher bars and stretches canvases herself, which has required her to learn skills like sewing, cutting and stapling. She takes on murals, logos and digital illustrations, and she's currently developing a custom wallpaper design for a local craft cocktail bar. She also founded SS TINGS, a small Bahamian business where she turns her artwork into merchandise and develops new designs each year.

Photography by Michaela Lynch

One project might have her standing in front of a canvas, while another requires her to learn a completely new process because she’s never made what a client is asking for. There are still quotes to write, invoices to send, expenses to track and a website to update before any of the more exciting work gets done.

“The variety and wide scope of creative projects keeps things exciting, with plenty of opportunities to learn a new skill or try something never done before,” she says.

It has also changed the way she thinks about an idea artists hear all the time: that making art is one thing, but actually making money from it is another.

“You definitely can,” Samantha says. “What works for me won’t work for everyone, but being creatively open-minded and willing to take on a variety of projects has been incredibly beneficial to me.”

For Now, There’s the Garage

If you walked into Samantha’s studio today, you would not find the dreamy artist space she pictures for her future. You’d be in the garage.

Her workspace occupies a small section of it, with tall shelves packed toward the ceiling with paint, paper, tools, substrates, found objects, bubble wrap and packaging supplies. Her current painting usually sits on the easel and gets most of the attention.

“It is condensed, a little chaotic, but it’s currently functional!” she says.

Samantha already knows this isn’t the studio she’ll have forever. Within the next year or so, she hopes to move into a new one, and she can already picture what she wants waiting for her there.

There will be plenty of natural light and paint on just about everything, with books nearby to flip through when she gets stuck. She wants a giant pinboard covering one wall, filled with photographs, family pictures, textures and patterns. Nearby will be the rope, netting, buoys and other objects she's collected along the shoreline, the same kinds of found materials she incorporates into her paintings. Works in progress will sit around the room waiting for her to return to them, and there will almost certainly be music playing while she works.

“If someone visited THAT studio,” Samantha says, “they would instantly be engulfed by ‘the inside of my brain.’”

For now, that studio is still something Samantha is working toward, while the actual work continues in the space she has.

There’s no dramatic before-and-after photo yet. The garage is still the before, but she’s not waiting for the after to begin.

The Things That Follow You Home

For all the things Samantha is building toward, some of the ideas occupying her mind lately have been pulling her backward, toward summers in Abaco and a yard filled with fruit trees.

Samantha and her fiancé have recently entered what she calls their “gardening era.” They’ve been planting mangoes, sugar apples, sea grapes and other fruit trees, knowing that some will take years before they produce anything. Growing them has been exciting and frustrating, but it has also brought back memories Samantha hadn’t expected to think about so much.

Before Hurricane Dorian, her grandmother’s yard in Abaco was filled with large fruit trees. Samantha remembers summers spent there with her cousins, picking fruit, climbing branches and running around outside, or, as she describes it, “just being wild.”

They were normal summer days when she was living them. Looking back now, Samantha knows she and her cousins were the last generation in their family to have those particular memories in that yard.

The trees she is planting now have started connecting those pieces of her life in a new way. Certain fruits and plants remind her of particular people, summers and experiences, and she has begun sketching ideas around those associations.

"Big Up Banana" / Acrylic on canvas / 16x20 in

The ocean holds memories for Samantha in much the same way. She spends more time diving during the summer, paying attention to the shapes, patterns, textures and colors she finds underwater, but what she brings back with her isn’t only visual. Certain creatures remind her of particular experiences, while familiar stretches of water can return her to a different version of herself.

“Summer is always a gathering period for me when it comes to finding inspiration,” she says.

"Nassau Grouper" / Acrylic on laser-cut wood / 16x30 in

Once you know Samantha’s story, it becomes difficult to look at the tropical colors, plants and sea life in her work as subjects alone. They belong to a much larger collection of memories and experiences that she continues to carry with her, even as her life moves further from the teenager who first began painting Abaco after Dorian.

At seventeen, Samantha painted familiar landscapes while searching for hope in places that had changed. Years later, home is still finding its way into her work, but she is looking at it from a different life now.

She isn’t trying to recreate exactly what was there before. She’s making something new from what stayed with her.

The Things We Plant Before We Know They’ll Grow

There can be a lot of pressure to know exactly what kind of artist you are, what you sell, how you make money and where all of it is leading. Samantha doesn’t have all of those answers yet.

The studio she wants is still in the future, and there are projects she hasn't tried yet. Her career is spread across painting, printing, merchandise, murals, commissions and her ongoing work with Hope Town Canvas. There are parts of it that will probably look completely different a few years from now.

She’s already living the creative career she once wasn’t sure she would pursue.

“Pursue what brings you joy and don’t let anyone tell you art is not important,” Samantha says. “Art is everywhere and your art matters. You can have a sustainable creative career and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Outside the studio, Samantha and her fiancé are still waiting on those fruit trees.

The mangoes, sugar apples and sea grapes will take time. For now, they can plant them, care for them and see what grows.

Samantha knows a little about that.

At seventeen, she was painting the home she had left behind without knowing where those paintings would lead. She couldn't have pictured the murals, the merchandise, the garage studio or the career she is building now.

She didn’t need to.

Some things are worth starting before you know what they’ll become.

Where to Find Samantha

Website: samanthasawyerart.com

Instagram: @ss.tings

Facebook: Samantha Sawyer

Email: samanthansawyer@gmail.com

---

Enjoyed this feature?

If you loved Samantha's story, there's plenty more to discover.

→ Browse More Journal Features

Meet artists, designers, makers, and creative businesses from around the world.

Have a story to tell?

The Green Room Journal features artists, designers, creative businesses, and beautiful spaces through thoughtful editorial storytelling.

Have a new collection coming? A studio you’d love to share? Or a story behind your work that people don’t know yet? We’d love to hear it.

→ Learn About Journal Features