meet samantha
A South Carolina native, Bridge grew up spending her summers in the Charleston sands; relishing her days in the tides, falling asleep in the evenings to the lullaby of the ocean.
Bridge attended the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities in Greenville, South Carolina for visual art and received a BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2008. After graduation, she moved to Philadelphia to see what wonders the future held. She found a career in hospitality, fell in love, got married, and traveled.
Enter cancer: testicular in her husband. One week before finding out she was pregnant.
Tragically days before their son’s first birthday, his dad passed away. Then, just three years later during the pandemic, Bridge was diagnosed with breast cancer. In 2021 after chemotherapy, double mastectomy, countless reconstruction surgeries, an oophorectomy, and radiation, Bridge is cancer free. The once shining city of Philadelphia with it’s promise of possibility becomes a burden- a reminder of dreams that were not meant to be. So in the summer of 2023 Bridge packed up her life, with her son and cat in tow, to start over in Charleston.
Years after her innocent summer days, life in the Lowcountry is her lullaby once again. Lying awake at night she dreams of the magic of the marshes. Cataloging every pattern, color, texture. Every bird, every crab... the hushed sway of the reeds. She is mesmerized, and so, Bridge creates odes to this landscape she calls home. Mother nature is perfect. No one can do it better and perhaps she is foolish for choosing this subject as her muse. Though as many Charlestonians know, the beauty here is unparalleled. Samantha’s psyche will not stop. And so she spends her time creating: collecting bits from nature, drying plants, painting, destroying, reworking, and painting again. The marsh, the ocean, the dunes are her mantra, her meditation.
Bridge lives out her wild and precious life with her son, Byard, and their dog Max, on James Island, enjoying the magic of Folly Beach & weekly trips to Bert’s.
