Starter Stories: Samantha Wood's Artistic Leap from Classroom to Canvas
Written and Photographed by Bailey Hughes
"There is never going to be a right time. Ever. You just have to start taking steps."
Sitting in her home studio, surrounded by her own paintings, Samantha Wood looks like proof she took her own advice. But ask how it feels to live inside the world she built, and she doesn't pretend it's simple.
"Most of the time I'm busy and kind of lose sight of that," she said. "That's one of the challenges of being an entrepreneur: you have to take time to appreciate how far you've come."
It's been a long road. In third grade, an art teacher got Samantha hooked, but even then, something held her back. The artists she learned about in school were all long gone, and it never occurred to her that being an artist was something a regular person could just decide to do.
"I thought somebody had to come tell you how you're gonna be an artist," she said. "I was very slow on realizing you actually have to make that happen for yourself."
Nobody ever came to tell her, so she found the next best thing: an art degree, a minor in education, and a classroom of her own. She thought that would scratch the itch. Instead, she spent her days watching students make things while she stood off to the side, and by the time she got home, she was too worn out to pick up a brush.
Then one morning, her husband had an unexplainable injury and couldn't walk. It took months to find out why, and major surgery to fix it. In the meantime, he couldn't work, and her entire world changed. They had a small child at home, and Samantha found herself staring down a future where caretaking quietly became her whole life.
"I was furious with myself that I had never been disciplined enough to make time for my art, and I told myself if I ever get the chance again, I will do it," she said. "Life can change in the blink of an eye. You can't keep putting it off, because it's not always an option."
Once he recovered, she held up her end of the deal. She got up at 3:15 every morning to see her husband off, painted until it was time to get ready for school, and again when she got home. She went through CO.STARTERS at theCO while still grading papers and learned to run her art like a business. Teaching from behind a mask on a rolling cart during COVID made the decision easy. In 2021, she left for good.
CO.STARTERS gave her business basics she never knew. What surprised her wasn't the business side, but the people. Her cohort was full of others making a similar leap, and for a self-described introvert, those relationships became her support system.
"I just thought it was a class I was going to go to for a few months," she said. "I didn't ever think I would still talk to so many of those people, and that's been five years ago."
Our Jackson Home added to that circle, connecting her to opportunities built around making a living as an artist, something she says Jackson just didn't have before.
"It's such a supportive thing," she said. "The true backbone of our little community."
No two days look the same, and she likes it that way – the Print of the Month Club, a Faire shop for wholesale orders, standing calls with artist friends in Seattle, New Jersey, and France for the bookkeeping nobody talks about. Then there's the work she loves most: murals. But for every wall she gets to paint, there's a stack of ‘no's’ behind it. She had actually received another ‘no’ the day before we spoke.
"In the portal where you apply for murals, they put a red box that says 'not invited,'" she said. "It really is hard not to feel like a complete failure. But there are hundreds of other people like me who got turned down for the same opportunity. That does not make our artwork bad."
The difficulty of being hired for a mural is what made The Ned mural mean so much. It was a ‘yes’ after a long run of no's – two ‘yeses’, counting a mural in a Germantown greenway tunnel she also completed this past spring. But the Ned wasn't just any building. Years earlier, as a teacher still dreaming of going full–time, she worked up the nerve to call and ask about hanging her paintings there. This phone call got her career moving. This spring, her design went up on that same building's front.
"It feels really full circle to now come and get to design the artwork that hangs on the front of [The Ned]," she said. "That just feels like a big wow for me."
Those two ‘yeses’ gave her breathing room and lifted a different weight off her shoulders.
"You're always trying to be like, 'hey, look at what I can do,'" she laughed. "Now it's, 'hey, look what she can do.'"
With more room to create, she's onto the next thing: a birth month series pairing each month with a bird and a tree, plus an idea five years in the making: stylized manhole cover art from cities all over, sparked by an old one downtown stamped "Jackson, Tennessee." What she hasn't found is the finish line she used to think was out there.
"I don't think that ever comes, but that's kind of life, right? I'm learning to be in the present and know it's okay to not have it figured out,” she said. “Things really do have a way of working themselves out."
For anyone sitting on a creative idea, waiting for things to line up, Samantha's answer hasn't changed from where this story started. Her trick: tell someone your plan before you're ready, so backing out quietly stops being an option.
"I started telling people I was gonna leave teaching, and then I felt like, well, I said it, so now I have to do it," she laughed. "So challenge yourself in that way. Do something you feel passionate about, and let it completely lead you."
Support Samantha by signing up for emails atsamanthawood.art, joining herPrint of the Month Club–$12 a month for art mail–shopping wholesale onFaire, or following her on Instagram @samanthawoodart.