Suzy Mae observes humanity for love and money across the fields of art, advertising, and comedy.  She writes from Los Angeles, harboring extreme fondness for black cats, infographics, and speculative fiction.

Growing up in Las Vegas, Suzy Mae interpreted her world through art, books, and music: painting, working at libraries and bookstores, and playing in bands with her gold Gibson guitar and a big, black, dirty drum kit.

After high school, Suzy Mae moved her guitar and paintbrushes to Chicago, eventually managing merchandising for Midwest vintage shop/ costume store Ragstock. Dealing with consumers face-to-face, waiting tables at all-night diners, and organizing music events taught her more about human nature than she’d ever learn in college. The tips weren’t bad either.

After four years in the Windy City, Suzy Mae again uprooted her gold guitar and ideas, moving to Portland, Oregon, serving sushi and creating intricate collages and miniature/ large-scale puppetry. Her unique voice and techniques won her a role in ad agency Wieden+Kennedy’s elite WK12 program. Suzy Mae’s life changed forever after discovering an advertising role called strategic planning that involved sociology, consumer research, and cultural observation. It became her obsession, internship, and eventual career.

Post-WK12, Suzy Mae was recruited by Wieden+Kennedy to help launch a new department: Dirt Research. She worked with all planners and accounts, traveling across the country and learning on the fly from some of the world’s best strategists how to moderate, synthesize, strategize, and surpass client expectations while catching your plane on time.

Suzy Mae loved Portland, but left the rain for sunny Los Angeles when an opportunity arose to run a gallery with two best friends. Within a month, she was freelancing, renovating a massive studio space, organizing shows for Gallery Tesseract, while learning where to find the best tacos and how to get from the East side to everywhere else. Suzy Mae is currently a freelance researcher and strategic consultant, creating her own ad-influenced transmedia artwork: videos, collage, drawings, stand-up comedy, and the Only OK In LA Twitter feed.

Best places to find Suzy Mae: museums, graveyards, bookstores, performing with improv group Black Rabbit, and biking her way through Hollywood. She’s always interested in new collaborations— if you like what you see here, say hello.

Bio photography by Anousha Hutton, 2014.  Site design by Diana Kwok.  Site development by Jenny Kwok.