Welcome aboard The Life Boat
The Life Boat launches every week to bring you writing and art about creativity, contemplative practice, nature and community.
Why subscribe to The Life Boat?
Every Wednesday all subscribers receive:
posts on creativity as a practice and a refuge
insights from my own creative practice to help you with yours
refreshing blasts of windswept island life from 59 degrees North (with pictures!)
inside-track views of what’s happening in my studio and artwork in progress
book recommendations to inspire us
interviews and conversations about creativity and resilience
an invitation to join The Life Raft, a weekly creative co-working session with a warmly supportive environment of quiet focus
Paid subscribers join a supportive community of artists and writers with
weekly chat threads to share our creative ups and downs
access to replays of our co-working sessions
audio posts to listen as you go
Here’s what some regular readers say:
“Your weekly writing keeps me grounded in this busy, anxious time.”
“Your writing is unique, profound and lyrical.”
"You always visit interesting places & people, and your attention to detail is awe-inspiring, you are so centered, and I always learn something new from your posts."
“I have loved seeing your artwork and reading your letters -- the depth, flow, light -- grace. So Orkney.”
“Your thoughtful writing about the practical value of art and making in times of great anxiety and upheaval.”
Hello, I’m Samantha Clark. I’m a visual artist and writer, and I help other artists develop their writing as a creative and professional tool.
This began as a weekly newsletter about the art I make and why I make it, a means of sharing what I have learned over thirty years of devotion to a creative practice that has always been my own personal life boat. It has also become a way to share the art and books, people and places that help me stay afloat in these increasingly turbulent times.
I hope they help you too.
I write about where I live, because Orkney is a beautiful and interesting place and shapes everything I make, draw and write. And, no doubt because I live on an island, in a house beside a loch, with the sound of running water in my ears all day, I write about the beguilements and complexities of water, that most gorgeous, vital and life-sustaining of elements and the one most visibly disrupted by pollution and climate change.
That’s why I have chosen the name THE LIFE BOAT. Because, as any islander knows, a boat is a lifeline, a means of connection, a way to navigate storms, a way to stay buoyant. A boat shows us that water is not how we are divided but how we are connected.
It’s my hope that on board this little Life Boat we can help each other stay afloat and learn to navigate the storms around us.
A bit more about me
I’m a visual artist and author living in Orkney and I use my experience to help other creatives make the work they feel called to bring to the world.
I’ve been a visual artist for thirty years with an MA from the Slade School of Art (UCL), and my art has been exhibited internationally, most recently at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. My first book, The Clearing was published by Little, Brown in 2020. I was awarded a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of St Andrews in 2017, a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2018 and a Cove Park Scottish Emerging Writer Residency in 2019. I received a Society of Authors Award in 2020 and a commission from the National Library of Scotland in 2021. I have taught at some of the top UK Art Schools for over 20 years and now bring this experience to my coaching and mentoring.
Here’s what some of my previous clients have said:
“Working with Sam over the last few months has been one of the best investments I have made in my art practice.
Sam is perceptive, knowledgeable, supportive and encouraging and I appreciate her gentle sense of humour and her care. I value the safe, non judgemental space that she creates for me to unravel and resolve issues about my art and over the months that we’ve been working together I’ve begun to develop a clearer understanding of my art practice and of myself as an artist.”
Andrea Butler, Visual Artist
“I contacted Sam for coaching because I had reached an impasse with a book I’ve been working on for a while. The feedback I received has surpassed anything I’d imagined coaching could offer. Her reading of the work showed a deep perceptiveness, as well as invaluable knowledge and understanding of the written word and its potential. Sam’s insightful comments and suggestions offered me the solutions and inspiration I needed to proceed, and much more. If you are looking for someone who can offer guidance and inspiration, you won’t find anyone better than Sam. I consider myself very fortunate to have found her.”
Angie Athanassiades
‘Ocean of Rain’, Samantha Clark, 2023, acrylic and gouache on paper
