Craft Around the Country

Sam Lee Christian Finds Power and Presence in Utilitarian Objects

Hot on the heels of a yearlong residency at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, the Richmond, Virginia–based mixed-media artist returns home with a newly expansive practice.

By Robert Alan Grand
June 3, 2026

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Photo by Robert Batey Photography for Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts

An installation shot of Sam Lee Christian's portion of Archivision: 2025–2026 Artists-in-Residence Closing Exhibition at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. At the center is Far and Away or Three Sisters, a 2026 multimedia work.

In the wall-based mixed-media work Far and Away or Three Sisters (2026), three woven broom heads are tied around multiple opposing ends of a bent, looping copper handle, with the twisting sweeper, which measures over six-feet wide, mounted on a deep-blue patchwork quilt in the shape of a semicircle.

It was the centerpiece of Sam Lee Christian’s portion of Archivision: 2025–2026 Artists-in-Residence Closing Exhibition, which ran until mid-May at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Far and Away also serves as an encapsulation of the Virginia-based artist’s latest body of work—one that elevates utilitarian craft into fantastical realms to encourage viewers to explore the artistry inherent and often overlooked in these everyday objects.

From a distance, Far and Away resembles a protective shield or a procession banner, a bold spin on Appalachian traditions and material hallmarks of the American South. For Christian, it represents a “power object” in an Afrofuturist narrative that underpins their visionary works, built from layers of spontaneous decisions that merge different materials, ideas, and unfinished pieces into a confident work of art.

Photo by Sam Lee Christian

Christian with their 2026 quilt Denim Dreams.

The piece also illustrates how much their practice has shifted, expanded, and evolved over the past 12 months they spent in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains as an artist-in-residence at the lauded craft school.

To make Far and Away, Christian learned the basics of broom making from fellow artist-in-residence Thomas McIntyre, who took a class with Georgia-based broom-and-basket virtuoso Max Hendry. Christian, inspired by the lesson, quickly dreamed up ways to take the craft even further, working with metal piping to create something almost implausible that would challenge their skill set. The quilted background was dyed using an indigo vat that another instructor left behind for residents to experiment with. “If I’m learning something, I have to do the hardest version of it—making it more difficult will make me have to learn the skill,” Christian says.

Taking a week-long banjo-building class gave Christian a taste of how to push a hobby to the limits, but it was the conversations and late-night skill-sharing with fellow artists-in-residence—fostered by the close quarters of the craft-school environment—that led them to embrace unexpected ways of working, an approach they’d use to make Far and Away. “It’s been a lot of learning from the cohort because we just spend so much time together,” they say.

Photo by Sam Lee Christian

A detail shot of Far and Away or Three Sisters.

“If I’m learning something, I have to do the hardest version of it—making it more difficult will make me have to learn the skill.”

— Sam Lee Christian

Other works in the exhibition mix age-old craft techniques to create something original and clever, like Feats of Strength (2026), which found Christian refashioning one of their “dream quilts”—sheer patchwork compositions wherein each block is filled with dried flower petals and community-sourced handwritten wishes for the future—into a soft-sculpture anvil, light to the touch but dense with metaphor. In other fiber pieces, a mélange of remnants—from a studio packed full with old lace, denim, and red gingham scraps, alongside drafts of poems, piles of old birthday cards, and jotted-down dreams—come together to form evocative, inspired works that burst with energy, reflect on resilience across history, exuberantly express Black joy, and showcase an unshakable optimism.

Christian’s penchant for blending an array of common cast-offs into poignant works of art comes primarily from their grandmother, an improvisational quilter. A lot of their earlier pieces, incorporating her old clothes and fabrics, “were me trying to connect with her,” they say. “And then it branched into me connecting with myself, my family, and the community.”

Branching out also led them to leave their home in central Virginia, where they had recent residencies and teaching stints at Visual Arts Center of Richmond and Oakwood Arts, for a yearlong residency at Arrowmont.

Photo by Sam Lee Christian

Christian's 2026 soft sculpture Feats of Strength is made from a repurposed quilt.

“For Southern artists, a lot of times, their goal is to move their work north—into New York, Chicago—but in my situation, my work is speaking directly to Virginia, to North Carolina, places I’ve lived and where most of my family is from,” they say. Arrowmont seemed like the ideal place to develop their practice while keeping feet firmly planted in the region.

Christian’s work is greatly influenced by familial history and uncharted material possibilities. It’s also deeply rooted in showing the multitudes contained in creative labor, eroding distinctions between craft and art, and demonstrating how an impromptu approach to materials can push long-held ideas of craft into new directions. They hope their works communicate not just an inventive approach, but also a reexamination of aesthetic histories.

“People have been making quilts, brooms, anvils, spoons, and other things for so long because they’re utilitarian—but that doesn’t make them any less beautiful,” they say. “When we recognize that they can be both, then we can acknowledge that women, Black and brown folks, queer folks, and trans folks are amazing artists and arbiters of such a beautiful existence.”

Photo courtesy of Sam Lee Christian

Christian stands next to a wall assemblage from their Personal Affects series, wherein the Richmond, Virginia–based artist explores identity, family, and heritage.

Photo by Robert Batey Photography for Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts

Another installation view of Archivision: 2025–2026 Artists-in-Residence Closing Exhibition.

Robert Alan Grand is a writer and photographer based in Asheville, North Carolina. He received the 2025 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant to cover contemporary art in southern and central Appalachia.

Learn more about Sam Lee Christian's work online.

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This article was made possible with support from the Windgate Foundation.

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