Samantha Holt

Visual Art – Orange County

Looking back I can’t remember when it was that I first started drawing, but I know as far as I can remember, I’ve always been drawing. I started taking lessons when I was 9 and by the time I was 14 I was student teaching at a small art school for kids ages 5 to adult. I taught there for about 6 years until I moved to college to get my degree in art. I graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a BFA in Illustration in 2010 and not long after, got my first “real world” job. Though it was a creative job, it was very apparent that this was not the creative outlet I’d been hoping for or really needed to thrive as an artist. It was extremely stressful with ridiculous work hours and really began to crush my creative spirit. Thankfully I’m no longer at that job. However after such a long period of feeling creatively stunted it was hard to decide what I wanted to do with my life. After a fantastic conversation with a fellow artist, she reminded me and re-inspired me to lose my fears and jump back into my art. It’s what I love and I shouldn’t hold back on the “maybe it won’t work out”. My new hope and dream is to become a concept artist for feature films. Hopefully someday I can inspire someone else go after their dreams as my friend and so many other artists have inspired me.