Sam Kline was born in Melbourne, Australia, and moved to the Portland area a when he was two. His father worked in government, and his mother was a graphic designer and illustrated children’s books. Growing up he was never short of materials to play and experiment with artistically. He started taking art classes at the age of seven and just kept going. — Sam is fascinated with patterns and the translation of information into a visually interesting format, like the veins on a leaf, or a page from the phone book can be an inspiration. He really enjoy art that keeps the mind moving. Art that wants to play with you. He realizes “playful” might not be the first word to come to mind when seeing his work, but it’s how he feels when he’s making it. It’s fun. — He prefers to work on, and with, circles as much as possible. They have a different “rhythm” than squares or rectangles. There is an organic interaction between a circle and the wall that a square just doesn’t have. Squares hang on the wall, circles play on it. He honestly can’t remember if he started working with circles because he had some lightning bolt of inspiration, or if he was just trying to be difficult (both are plausible). But he thanks his ring of stars that he did. He is happier thinking in circles. — Sam has worked as a sign and mural painter, graphic designer and illustrator. Among other things, he has painted guitars, buildings, vehicles, roller coaster cars and a forklift or two. There was a dalliance with comic books in the 1990’s that sometimes threatened to almost go somewhere at times. Graffiti was perhaps one of his favorite artistic tangents. It combined calligraphy, graphic design, color theory, marketing and strategic execution. (He never did quite perfect that last one though.) He really enjoy working with non-traditional materials. You get to make up the rules as you go, because there aren’t any.