Stillness In The Spin

Draped in a plaid trench and lovely neutrals, Sam's classic clothing echoes his creative quest for the enduring: “The songs I create, I try to view them with this sense of timelessness…talking about eternal themes that come back over and over again.” He finds a perch upon a weathered log, the fallen tree a marker of the perpetual cycle of surrender and regrowth. Raised in the rural countryside with an intrinsic consciousness of the rhythms of the natural world, Sam’s art also looks at cycles, “how it was in the past, how it is now, how it might be in the future.” In our natural spin, he finds “deeper emotional inquiries” that manifest in his songwriting; “It is a way for me to take sincere, true stories and try to make sense of them.” Some of the sincerest stories he attempts to understand are those borne from the journey of parenthood.

The naive twangs of random notes played by small hands drift in the air, as Marley plays his dad’s guitar with a toddler’s confidence. Sam splits with glee, rivulets of joy grooving dimples and creases. Becoming a parent, he reflects, “has changed [his] entire perspective on everything.” A nearly ineffable experience, he declares that in his life, his son is “the most incredible, wonderful, joyous happening.” As Sam speaks, the past and future intersect and entwine, the outcome of past premonitions and the whispering of fates. “It's been deeply profound becoming a father,” he muses, gazing towards his beloved child. Fully engulfed by absolute devotion for this chapter now, a look into the creative’s past reminds us how much changes as seasons inevitably rush by.

Roving the uninhabited woods, Sam walks again alongside solitude—the solitude that forged a relationship with writing as “silent companionship.” Pensive but grounded, he learned long ago at the start of his modelling career to channel “feeling a bit lost in time” into something “creatively constructive.” Look closer at his instrument; written in pearlescent letters down the headstock of the guitar, “revelation.”

Mirroring the multi-faceted modalities of the artist’s expression, revelations spring from many pools. Raised by a mother who loved dance, Sam reaches for movement to feel “embodied.” Group dance meditation has had a particularly strong impact: “It’s one of the most liberating and pure things that I've done. There have been times in my life where I’ve been able to disengage from everything that's going on in the world, and my mind, and just be a fucking body moving in space.” Indulging in the movement our bodies crave expresses a cyclical return to the earliest beginnings. And in the moments after, the “nice little downloads” from stillness, insights, fuel for exploration, and calm.

In his recent music video, Sam imagines a world of creative alchemy: “The sensation is almost this visceral eruption…you're often entering into this place of timelessness. Hours can go by, and you almost have to drag yourself out of it.” An experience both within and without, suspended in time yet consuming hours and days in creation. The video plays with “a phantasm of color,” in contrast to some of Sam’s imagery in greyscale: “I think there's so much beautiful nostalgia in black and white, and it suddenly becomes classic.” Drawn towards the timeless, the recurring, his pursuit of capturing experiences through art is inextricable in the story of humanity. Sam earnestly asks us all to lean into this exploration:

“I think my work as an artist is to try to inspire other people to do the creative work as well. I hope that either here in this conversation or beyond in the rest of my work, there is an urge to inspire viewers on their own creative journey. It's been an incredible adventure for me so far! So I encourage everyone—at whatever stage they're at, whether they're established or just beginning—dig deep and enjoy it.”