susie watson designs
It was the possibility of creating Art for everyday that inspired me in the
beginning. Art in its broadest sense, is the expressions of human imagination
and skill and I believe it can make a big difference to everyday life. It can
inspire us, give us an outlet from our daily routines and boost our happiness
levels. And yet we tend to think of it as something to be saved for special
occasions, or enjoyed from a distance, behind glass. My own wedding china for
example, spent most of its life in a cupboard gathering dust – and I think that
is really where it all began. I wanted to create everyday things that were both
beautiful and robust enough to be part of everyday life at home. I was almost
fifty by then, and increasingly aware that time was running out. The delightful
small factory we found in Stoke quickly ran out of capacity and even with a
second factory, we quickly ran out of capacity. By happenstance, we were
introduced to a ceramic factory in Sri Lanka, where traditional studio skills
have been preserved. Even then, we spent a full year working on techniques
before we were able to start production in earnest. That year, I made eight
two-week trips and seemed to be rarely out of an airport. During one such trip,
I stopped off for a few days in Southern India to visit a textile factory, with
an idea of developing some table linens. And in this way, our product range
began to grow…
