“If it were not for art, I would probably be dead or crazy!”

Island Isolation and Early Creativity

To begin with, I grew up as the only daughter in a well-to-do family. Specifically, my grandfather, a chemist and former member of the Jewish mob, took his profits from prohibition, and in the early 1950s built the first luxury hotel on St. Thomas. Consequently, we all moved there; lock, stock, aunts, uncles, parents, cousins, grandparents, and standard poodles. The first school that I attended had thirteen students.

As a result, very few children lived nearby to play with, so loneliness became an unwelcome companion. During this time, painting and dolls became my passion. Inventive but badly sewn little outfits for the dolls occupied my time, along with watercolors of the island flora and fauna. In particular, lizards were my favorite. Unfortunately, art supplies were scarce on the island; therefore, I sometimes made paintbrushes by gluing a lock of my hair to a stick.

The Education of an Artist

Later, when I turned fifteen, my parents sent me to the Stockbridge School in Massachusetts. Immediately, I found many friends and outlets for my imagination in this offbeat school with classmates like Chevy Chase, Steve Rivers, and Hedy Lamarr’s kids. Fortunately, the staff valued the Arts as much as SAT scores.

However, this background did not serve me well when Cornell University subsequently accepted me as a Fine Arts student. For instance, binary mathematics and dreary philosophy classes took up as much academic space as painting and drawing. Thus, it quickly became clear that the school did not fit me.

Consequently, I took a train from Ithaca to New York City and found a bed in my Auntie’s unused maid’s room. At that time, we both attended classes at the venerable Art Students League. However, my freewheeling lifestyle did not please my parents, so I enrolled as a matriculated student at NYU.

The 60s: Rock N Roll and The Navarro

Next, I moved into an unoccupied apartment that they owned at the Navarro Hotel on Central Park South. After all, this was the 60s; Rock N Roll was blossoming, and the Beatles came to New York. Through a good friend, we got on-stage tickets for their first concert at Carnegie Hall. Like millions of other girls, I fell in love! Eventually, the elegant apartment became a halfway house for every beautiful, longhaired, and broke musician north of Fourteenth Street.

Sadly, this was not to last. My father made an unannounced business trip to the city and found unfamiliar bodies asleep everywhere. As a result, the hotel booted me out, and I holed up in a tiny bed-sit in the Village. At just eighteen years old, I was no longer in college and living a dangerous lifestyle.

London Fashion and Synchronicity

Throughout my life, synchronicity has always appeared. For example, my father happened to have a dear friend and business associate who lived in London, the mecca of Rock! Because he had a wonderful family and owed my father money, he took me in as a trade!

Due to my love of clothes, the London College of Fashion accepted me. This fit perfectly! Carnaby Street was right around the corner; furthermore, my classmates and I spent many delightful hours prowling the boutiques and ferreting out glitz and glam at thrift stores. Since money was tight while I ran with a crowd of debutantes, trust fund babies, and British royalty, I had to use my creativity to design outfits to make a statement!

Return to New York: The Fashionista Years

When I graduated from LCF, another beautiful synchronicity appeared. While watching a TV program in London about youth and fashion, the New York segment showed a young guy driving around in a sports car, music blaring. Instantly, he captivated me! If only…

Eventually, I returned to the States and visited my grandparents in the Virgin Islands. Surprisingly, their houseguest was a successful New York Fashionista. Sharing the story of the TV show I’d seen in London, lo and behold: the young man in the sports car was her nephew!

Subsequently, she introduced me, and as fate intervened, their principal designer from Copenhagen could no longer renew her green card. Here I stood, a US Citizen with European training and style. Therefore, the firm hired me, and I became a great success. In fact, at 22, I made more money than I spent! They sent me to Europe for inspiration, and I did fashion shows all over the USA. Moreover, I hung out with an eclectic crowd of New York and European artists: Terry Southern, Andy Warhol, Al Cooper, Edie Sedgwick, Warren Beatty, and the Rolling Stones.

Suzi K. Edwards Mosaics: A New Chapter

In order to heal my grieving heart, I began to experiment with ceramics and mosaics. In short, mixing ceramics and glass mosaics to create something exciting and new became a thrilling challenge.

Actually, I saw ceramics as the marriage—albeit sometimes a rocky one—of creativity and science. Magic seemed to happen in the kiln, where a simple lump of clay, with the application of glaze and colorants, could emerge triumphant as a remarkably beautiful object, or conversely, crack and craze and end up in the trash!

As a result, I began to get Public Art commissions and experimented with the design and fabrication of site-specific projects. Designing for a particular location and purpose brought me great joy. Above all, I loved to see how art could enhance an environment: create interest, encourage conversation, and elicit a brief pause from present-moment reality.

Currently, I live in West Palm Beach and teach mosaics at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York. Meanwhile, my partner, British artist Paul Ian Hamilton, and I inspire each other as we constantly experiment with new ideas and techniques.