Susan Spero's parents had a rich and varied influence on her personal and professional development. Her mother was a ballet dancer, who taught her daughter about the beauty and grace that can be achieved by a perfectly extended leg. Susan's dad, a former gymnast and the owner of what used to be called a "five and dime" store, loved tinkering with machinery. Not a man given to gender stereotyping, he taught his young daughter how to take machines apart and put them back together. He probably also gave Susan her phenomenal physical strength and interest in the power and stamina of the human body. Given that eclectic parental influence, it's not surprising that Susan's career has never followed anything resembling a traditional path. She's worked as a dancer, fitness trainer, ballroom dance teacher, Pilates instructor, diesel mechanic, emergency medical technician, and sous chef. But throughout all those many career shifts, one thing has remained constant: Art was always an important part of her life.

Susan was already drawing as a kid. She spent hours sketching family scenes and familiar objects. Her teachers in high school recognized her talent and encouraged her to go to art school, so she did, getting her degree at the Philadelphia College of Art, where she showed a special gift for three dimensional sculpture. Ironically, it was her talent for sculpture that led her into dance. After she finished sculpting a series of high-flying female figures that seemed to soar through air, Susan wanted to feel what that flight was like and turned to dance, performing at the age of twenty-two, with a group called The Dancemakers in Ithaca, New York. Sidelined in her dance career by a back injury, she turned down yet another career path and got her Master's degree in expressive therapy, which focuses on using the arts to bring about physical and emotional healing.

Always a perfectionist in every profession, no matter how many there were, she got certified in Pilates, Gyrotonic, Kundalini Yoga and dance therapy. Along the way, she built up a roster of clients, who swore that without her genius at detecting and fixing what was wrong with their bodies, they couldn't live comfortably in their own skin.

Recently, Susan cut back on her training schedule so that she could focus on sculpture. With more time to devote to art, she also had time to take on commissions and began sculpting, at her clients' request, the huge shimmering fish that she has worked on over the last two years.