Dr. Susan Surette, PhD

Susan Surette is a ceramic artist and craft historian who received her PhD in 2014 with a dissertation on the ceramic murals of the Sturdy-Stone Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She completed a SSHRC funded post-doctoral position at NSCAD University in 2016. Her research interests are focussed upon the contested discursive spaces of Canadian ceramic production, textiles, craft and decorative art, as well as the application of an interdisciplinary approach that addresses the realtionships among the object, maker and consumer over time. Since 2008 Susan Surette has taught undergraduate courses at Concordia on ceramic histories, textile histories, and craft theory and histories, and a graduate course on craft theory. Her research into Canadian ceramics has been published in Métiers d'art/Craft Journal, Itineraire: Rendez-vous 2009 en métiers d'art, 2010; Métiers d'art/Craft Journal; Craft: Perception and Practice Vol. 2; Utopic Impulses: Contemporary Ceramics Practice; On the Table: 100 years of Functional Ceramics in Canada; Journal of Canadian Art History and various museum catalogues. She has co-edited Sloppy Craft: Postdisciplinarity and the Crafts (Bloomsbury, 2015), Craft and Heritage: Intersections in Critical Studies and Practice (Bloomsbury 2021) and Special Edition on Crafts, Journal of Canadian Art History (2018-2019). Susan Surette's ceramic murals and vessels are found in corporate, public and private collections in Canada, the United States and Europe. 

Education

BSC, Wilfrid Laurier University; BFA (Art History) Concordia University, MA (Art History) Concordia University, PhD (Art History) Concordia University

Thesis Title

Canadian Ceramic Relief Murals:Studio Craft and Architecture –A Case Study of the Sturdy-Stone Centre Murals, 1975-1983

Supervisor

Dr. Elaine C. Paterson

Research interests

• Canadian Ceramics
• Craft and Decorative Art
• Textile History
• Material Culture Studies
• Heritage