Sam Lee is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is featured in cafes and restaurants such as Andytown Coffee Roasters (in SF’s Facebook building), Lazy Bear, and True Laurel, and featured in hotels and resorts such as Auberge Resorts and Populus Hotel! Most notably, Sam’s illustration work was featured in the Deyoung Museum Open 2023.
Sam Lee is a Bay Area–based artist, pen illustrator, potter, and the owner of Dusted and Blue Ceramic Studio. Since relocating to the Bay Area in 2007, she has developed a multidisciplinary practice rooted in deep observation, personal immersion, and a sustained relationship with place. Lee founded Dusted and Blue in 2017, where she organizes classes, workshops, community events, and craft markets for the studio’s 75 members and the wider community.
Lee holds a BFA in Textile Design from the Academy of Art University. Her work was included in de Young Open 2023 at the de Young Museum and has been featured in the book She Explores.
Drawing Portfolio Statement
Sam Lee’s work explores the landscapes of Northern California—particularly Yosemite and the Eastern Sierra—through intricately rendered pen drawings, alongside a ceramic practice grounded in craftsmanship, material exploration, and natural process. Drawing landscapes since childhood, she began pursuing illustration more seriously in 2012, steadily building her body of work through dedicated studio practice and close engagement with the natural world. Working in pen, Lee builds each composition through layered line work and thousands of deliberate marks—a slow process that often takes months per piece. Because of this pace, she completes only four to eight drawings each year, allowing each work to carry the density of attention and detail the subject demands. She gathers source material through extensive hiking and backcountry exploration, photographing in the field to study shifting light, atmosphere, and composition. These images become essential studio references, translating lived experience into detailed, textured drawings.
Lee began developing this body of work in 2017 and has refined both technique and focus over time. The stillness of 2020 deepened her commitment to this meticulous pace. In recent years, she has expanded into larger-scale compositions—nearly double the size of earlier works—while maintaining the same level of detail. Early works were exhibited at Rare Device, and her most recent work reflects an ongoing evolution in scale, technical control, and artistic vision.
