Sam lives in Oakland with his wife Mittie Cuetara, and two children, Daniel and Stewart.  Originally from the Boston area, he studied Sculpture and Drawing at Harvard. After 10 years in the wilderness making art, commercial sculpture, designing and building wooden furniture, and after a few years in the special effects business, he attended the Product Design Program at Stanford, where among other things he worked with a team at the Rapid Prototyping Lab on a micro-air vehicle called the "Mesicopter." Digital Clay began as a Master's Project exploring more direct (hands-on) CAD interfaces entitled "Material as Interface."