About me

I live in San Francisco with my husband and two daughters, and you’ll usually find me working from my desk in our kitchen late into the night!  We had the opportunity to move to New York from London at the beginning of 2016 and decided to go for it, so packed up our lives in the U.K. and took a chance on an adventure. It was the push I needed to start living my ambition to make a career from my artwork. 

I have always dreamed of making a living from my own creative work but over the years since I graduated from Art School, my career took a more corporate path.   Leaving that world has allowed me to realise that now is my chance to take that long-held creative dream of mine, and finally have the courage to go for it.

Since launching my first range of papercuts on Etsy in 2016, I have sold my work at the Bust Holiday Craftacular in New York and Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco, and my work has been featured in Mollie Makes Magazine.

If you'd like to connect to collaborate or grab a creative coffee in San Francisco, I'd love to hear from you!

Drop me a line or find me on Instagram @suze_riley

My creative background

I have always loved to draw, paint, sew and make things with my hands for as long as I can remember.  I dreamed of going to Art School, and at 19, packed my bags and moved from my rural English home to Bristol where I studied Illustration full-time for 3 years. I have a B.A. Hons in Illustration from The University of the West of England and an M.A. in Graphic Design from the London College of Communication, which I studied for part-time whilst working in marketing.

Before I left London, I was working as Head of Digital Marketing at Transworld Publishers, a division of Penguin Random House in the U.K.  I worked on the marketing campaigns for bestselling authors including Sophie Kinsella and Lee Child and for Paula Hawkins' debut thriller, The Girl on The Train.

I loved my job, the people I worked with, the books, the authors, the creativity, the buzz of being part of something bigger than me.

If we hadn't moved to New York, I'd probably still be working in publishing. My former career taught me things I could never have imagined, introduced me to people I never would have met, shaped me into the person I am now. For that I will always be thankful.