Susan’s love and study of art began early. She won a haiku contest about bunnies in fourth grade and years later managed to have three art classes her senior year of high school.

After graduating from Chico State in 1987, she spent the next thirteen years teaching middle school English. Being a teacher was the most difficult, joyous and significant accomplishment of her life.

She left teaching in 2002 and has been immersed in mosaics ever since, often pondering how middle schoolers and tesserae (the little bits of material that make up mosaics) have a lot in common:

• There are a lot of them scrunched into a very small space. 
• They’re lovely, each in his/her/its own way.
• Tesserae don’t love you like kids do.
• On the other hand, tesserae don’t follow you around the classroom, pulling at the hem of your shirt, begging repeatedly, “Ms. Cro, Ms. Cro! Will you read your bunny haiku again, Ms. Cro? The bunnies! Hey! Ms. Cro, will you read your haiku? It’s so funny! Huh? I can’t believe that thing won a prize, Ms. Cro. Please? Come on!”

Now she lives and creates in a (very quiet) cabin in the woods of the California Sierra Foothiils. As a kayaker, hiker and reader, her work is most influenced by nature, as well as poetry, literature, and others’ mosaics.