Local Artist of the Week: A Message from Samantha Wood-Gaines

Samantha Wood-Gaines is a Vancouver based artist, business owner, published model, and published author. Samantha has been growing her business and platform for years and is creating beautiful content and inspiration for local and international youth. She is focused on community and positivity which makes her content stand out. 

Keep an eye on Samanthas social media to keep up with her many new projects launching very soon!

A message from Samantha:

Hello, my name is Samantha Wood-Gaines. 

My goal as an artist is to uphold and amplify marginalized voices. I’ve focused on black voices because of the hardships my mother has gone through since leaving Jamaica to come to Canada for university and work. All that she’s gone through has fueled my fire to help others be heard and drawing black joy to highlight that not all black history is trauma.

I love showcasing black people together and giving positive associations to black men and women. Showcasing them as scholars, olympics, musicians – REAL people who make real change. 

Art allows me to express myself and continue building with other people that can help this goal become a reality!

I originally went into university for a creative writing degree, but I quickly fell in love with sociology and learning about different structures and how people utilize these structures over time.

I then decided half way through my degree that I wanted to take on a minor and specialize in technology and society. This helped introduce Adobe software and understand how to work with premiere pro and photoshop.

After I graduated, I decided to try digital drawing. A mentor of mine encouraged me to buy a tablet and keep drawing until it felt more fluid.

After moving back home with my parents, I continued practicing digital drawing until I came up with something I liked.

It is definitely very different from using pen and paper, but once you learn your style and how to manipulate your lines, it becomes a lot more fun and enjoyable. 

I enjoyed digital art so much, I decided to start a business. I ended up registering as a graphic design business because so many of my friends needed logos for their new businesses, and they were interested in trusting my vision. 

This grew my confidence and I started offering custom illustrations. I registered my business name SW CREATIONS in 2019 and here I am still pursuing my passion for art 3 years later!

I’m thankful to now have the opportunity to self publish a poetry book that I illustrated. It gives me so much joy to know friends and family are enjoying these poems. “Coming Home” can be found through many different online sources. You can get the digital version through BookLeafPublishing or a physical copy from Amazon (or other distributors if you prefer).

I also finally started the podcast I’d been daydreaming about since the summer of 2020. After I completed my poems, I thought “well, if I could write 20 poems in 20 days and feel good about that, then why not record and put out an episode?”

I pushed myself and hopped on my friends podcast to get myself prepared to release my own episode a few months later.

I figured out a logo I love and showcased colors that really pop! Because a lot of topics we cover on the podcast stand out. I want to continue driving conversations and helping people through this platform. I want to continue building community and a sense of acceptance and help others embrace their truest self! 

To help further this vision, I’ve started a community building certificate through SFU that will help me gain confidence in starting and continuing to help my community feel heard and cared about.

I am excited to see where this next chapter takes me.

I want to continue creatively bringing collective positive change. I want my music, art, and words to reach people and make them feel seen. Throughout these various mediums, I’ve been able to find myself and my purpose by going against the normal university -to- corporate job pathway. I wanted to try my own thing out and it’s paying off more and more as the years go by. 

Remember: betting on yourself is the HARDEST yet most POWERFUL thing you’ll ever do in your life…

It will be hard, but it WILL be WORTH it 1000%

YOU are worth taking a chance on and living out your wildest dreams!!!

I hope this helps you find your path and push you to explore what you are most passionate about in this lifetime.

I hope this gives you the sign you were looking for to just… GO FOR IT!

All the best,

Samantha Wood-Gaines 

CEO of SW Creations

Samantha’s Contact Information and Social Media:

Instagram: @bluskyereal @theswcreations @skyesthelimitpodcast

Email: sw_creations@outlook.com

Link to Samantha’s Poetry Book: https://www.amazon.ca/Coming-Home-Samantha-Wood-Gaines/dp/B09L3NNZP5/ref=sr_1_6?crid=EB0K8QIUWC6M&keywords=coming+home+poetry&qid=1647889318&sprefix=coming+home+poetry%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-6

Recommended Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *