BIOGRAPHY

Susie Ketchum was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico and at an early age moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Susie found her life long passion for ceramics beginning at the age of fourteen. Susie graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute with a B.F.A. in 1981. Susie’s work has always focused on the surface and the expressive use of clay sculpturally. She has a strong foundation of ceramic decorative techniques and glazing. This knowledge allows her to create rich and complicated art. Her work has an obsessive quality to detail no matter if it is a coffee mug or a large plate for wall display. She loses herself in the process and each piece is unique. Susie’s work is all hand painted and painstakingly created with a great attention to detail.

After the birth of her son, Susie made a decision to attend nursing school to better contribute to her family financially. She graduated in 2006 and became a registered nurse. Susie had many specialties as a nurse but found her true calling in hospice and palliative care. Her nursing career was full of rich and personally rewarding experiences which are manifested in her work. In 2020, she retired from nursing and has been immersed in her art full time since
then.

Susie has an extensive history of showing her work throughout the country and has shown extensively in California. In 2001 the Crocker Art Museum purchased one of her large plates for the permanent collection of California artists. Her work is in many private collections and continues to be actively collected today. Susie has had a decades long career in ceramics and continues to work passionately in her ceramic’s studio every day. Her enthusiasm for her ceramic art continues to grow and evolve and she feels that her current work is some of her best. Her many life experiences are reflected in the richness and humor in her art. Susie lives and works in Santa Cruz, Ca.