Since her early teens, Susan made her own greeting cards for family and friends and in college sold them as wall decor to boutiques, while earning her BA in Art from San Jose State University. In 1970, she and her husband moved to L.A. where they started a greeting card company. Using Jim’s business expertise and Susan’s art and verse, they created a company and sold a complete line of stationery products for Christmas and everyday.
In 1985, Susan and Jim sold People Productions to C.R. Gibson of Norwalk, Connecticut. Susan continued her greeting cards and stationery product lines and her trademark look became product lines of photo albums, ceramic mugs, paper tableware, Christmas and baby collections and a best selling series of gift books. Her work has been licensed and sold as stitchery kits, ceramic magnets, textile products and calendars.
In 1987, Susan created the first two of twelve books in a successful gift book line for C.R. Gibson, adding one book each year for ten years. Sold primarily through catalogs and gift stores, these books of simple wisdom and original art have sold 1.5 million copies. Five of these titles are still strong sellers in their translations of Spanish and Portuguese.
In 1997, C.R. Gibson was sold to Thomas Nelson, Inc. of Nashville, Tennessee. With no place in their Christian market for C.R. Gibson titles, Susan terminated her book contract in goodwill and began her journey of fulfilling a new dream. She was inspired by personal, meaningful letters from people who were helped by her books and began working on ideas for a new series. These deeper, more spiritually nourishing gift books would be called JOURNEYS.
Susan was inspired by personal, meaningful letters from people who were helped by her books. With a new desire to write deeper, more spiritually nourishing books, Susan began working on ideas for a new series. These books would find homes in retreat centers, recovery programs, counselor's offices, hospitals and hospices and in book and gift stores everywhere.
Susan began studying art again and found a passion in painting soft, free, loose watercolors, especially outdoors in nature. Little did she know her “plein aire” paintings would help her back into the marketplace as perfect illustrations for her new gift book collection.
The Journeys Series gift books were created to inspire and nourish us all along the journey of our lives. They are published by Helen Exley Giftbooks, a UK company known for their gift books of beautiful art and thoughtful quotes.
Susan lives with her husband Jim in Ojai, California, where she finds inspiration for her work through the beauty of nature. They have two grown children, Brent and Emily.