Susan L. Griffin

Susan Griffin grew up surrounded by art and craft.  On her parents Saskatchewan farm she was exposed to the beauty of nature and had access to a bountiful array of crafting material.  With the long winters of temperatures reaching forty below there was time for creative pursuits.  As a child she was always ‘crafting’ something.  Eager to learn new crafts and try her hand at many genres she learnt to sew, cook, cast ceramics, fashion paper crafts, style candles, and embroider, among many other crafts.  While attending high school she was instructing over 150 students a week in ceramics as well as designing and painting pieces for retail sale.  She produced thousands of ceramic containers for her family’s honey enterprises which found their way around the world.  She has formal training in Ceramics, Interior Design and Floral Design.  She enjoys scrapbooking and is also a self-taught gingerbread and sugar flower artist.  Several of her sugar creations and decorated cakes have been featured in national bridal magazines and International publications.  All of these creative activities developed her love for unique artistic expressions which she transformed into her love affair with fabric and thread.  Her enchantment with quilting started in the late 1970's when she made a water-bed sized cathedral window quilt entirely by hand.  Along her quilting journey she has created many quilts rarely following a pattern preferring instead to add her own individual touch to each one.  In addition to traditional quilts she has produced an impressive array of true miniature quilts and non-traditional quilts as well as award winning art quilts.  Susan has had the honor of having five of her quilts juried into the “O Canada” exhibits at International Quilt Festivals in 2010, 2012 and again in 2013.   In April of 2017 she held her first solo art show where she presented 50 fibre art pieces portraying her journey with Lyme disease.  In April 2018 she completed the final two pieces in this series and re-named it "52 Yarns of Lyme - The Lyme Dis-Ease Series".  Since her recovery Susan has been working full time on her art and has embraced the art quilt movement. Her pieces take many forms from complete fabric books, to walls quilts and 3-D art.