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Sam 
Axtell

Hangings for Liminality 

2023 – Current

 

Images from HDTS A–Z West Work Trade Residency March 2024

Big Soft Hands (to hold impossibly hard things)

november 2023
 
How big do hands have to be to hold collective grief, or space for collective understanding? Or to resist so that they can live?

Quilts

2021–2023
Statement: Quiltmaking
Strata 2021-22
HAPIV 2023
Untitled 2021
Valdoria & Cornrows 2022-23

Lentils 2021
Qora 2021



Video
2019-2023

About



Hello ✸
Born 1987 in Vancouver, BC, I was in a small coastal Georgia town and then later in a midsized Florida city on the Gulf Coast. I eventually relocated to California 10 years ago. I’ve been a practicing artist and designer since 2010.



My art practice began in high school with image based media (mainly photography and portraiture.) This is where I have always been most comfortable. My textile and craft practice began with knitting — prompted by my 3rd grade teacher who tasked us with exploring skills we’d been curious about learning in our short lives. 

My work is a response to personal inquiries with regard to the idea of a “hero’s journey,” and explores social issues, systems of access, physics, geology/geological time, symbology, mysticism, and other things seen and unseen.
 




CV
2024 PST Palm Springs Art Museum, Family+ Artists’ Workshop, Palm Springs, CA 
         Armory Arts Zine Fest, Pasadena, CA
2023 Obscured Messages, Group Exhibition, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA
2022 Creature Learning Brand Refresh, Los Angeles, CA
2022 OC Zine Fest, Orange County, CA
2019 Headspace Holiday Marketing Campaign, Production Assistant, Santa Monica, CA
2018-2019 Docuflorida II, Group Exhibition, TT Wentworth Jr. Florida State Museum, Pensacola, Fl
2018 SXSW x Headspace Production Design Assistant, Santa Monica, CA
2016 Vagina Monologues, Communications & Set Design, Artel Gallery, Pensacola, FL
2015 POPRAGEOUS, Surface Pattern Designer & Communications Design, Los Angeles, CA
2014 Last Buffalo Art Show, Group Exhibition, Sluggo’s, Pensacola, FL
2012-2014 House Pencil Green, Production Artist, Pensacola, FL
2011 Nam June Psyche Archive by artist Valerie George, video editing & design, Pensacola, FL
2010 Diversionaries

RESIDENCIES
2024 High Desert Test Sites, A–Z West Work Trade Residency, Joshua Tree, CA

EDUCATION
2010 University of West Florida, BFA Digital Art with Graphic Design Concentration

CERTIFICATES
2018 Otis College of Art & Design, Typography 

BIBLIOGRAPHY
2021 Midnite Snack, Issue 1, featured photography