Susie has worked in care, education, and art for her entire career. Living in Costa Rica was the biggest influence on Susie’s creative practice as this is where she learned to stitch and formed a love for folk art. Susie watched how people made art together in groups and transferred this principal to her work in the UK. By using repurposed materials like ceramics and fabrics, she felt she was working with mediums that had been made by ‘others’ hands and this connects her to ‘community’.
Susie’s art is the story of how she interprets her world. Her latest work evolved from her processing her husband’s heart attack and the grief of a friend’s death from lung cancer. Susie stitched the organs; heart and lungs, in the making she found she could find ease and peace; stitching beauty and thought into harsh moments. She looks to create beauty in her pieces as a method of transforming the pain by changing her perspective.
A natural progression of her practice was to explore ‘Milagros’ (miracles) which are votive offerings in prayer or thanks often for physical desires or ailments. [Emily had written her dissertation on anatomical votives decades earlier]. This exploration is now where Susie hopes to integrate others’ healing into her work collaboratively.
