Island Life Magazine Ltd April / May 2016 | Page 42

INTERVIEW

endless juggling of work and home.
A typical day will see her nipping to the
studio round the corner from home at
around 7.30am to fire up the kiln, then
dashing back to do breakfast for the boys,
getting them off to school and walking
Lucy the dog on the beach, before
heading back to the studio to start work.
“I try to take weekends off and work
around school hours,” she says, “and the
boys are great – they both get it”.
In fact, both her sons are keen on art and
music and like mum, both play piano.
For Sue, the piano is great exercise
for her fingers, which tend to take a

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hammering during her heavy work with
the clay.
“It’s a very physical job so I have to take
care of myself” she says.
As well as the piano playing, her other
big switch-off pastime is swimming.
She dives into Ryde pool three times a
week and is building up her strength for
a planned three-mile swim across the
Solent.
Apart from that, she nips across the
Solent by ferry on a pretty regular basis for
business and exhibition trips to London.
“It’s very accessible from here so I really
do get the best of both worlds”.

She admits that had she not been in
London at the start of her career and
been able to make such high-profile
contacts and connections, it’s unlikely
that the business would have taken off in
the way it has.
Nowadays, though, she posts
commissions off all around the world
from her Ryde base and says the
export side of the business in high-end
tableware is growing rapidly.

Future plans
Looking forward, she says she’d love