By Alana Aamodt ’18

Susan Hoff ’06, artist and designer, visited the Studio Art Department’s Design Workshop class in early October 2016 to lead a three-day recycling workshop.

Hoff creates bags and accessories inspired by her years spent at sea and her upbringing on a Midwestern horse farm. Reclaimed sailcloth and vintage horse tack are brought together to create products that are not only sustainable but rich with character, evoking stories of their former lives.

Over the course of three days, Hoff helped students find inspiration from a multitude of recycled materials, turning them into structural forms and useful items. Materials included salvaged fabric, stone, metal, wood, bike tires, and cans as well as leather and sails provided by Hoff. After Hoff’s crash course in sewing and her creative advice, students produced backpacks, lampshades, seats, and shoes.

Colorado College helped Hoff get her start in design in more ways than one. An art major and outdoor enthusiast during her time as a student, Hoff received a Ritt Kellogg Expedition Grant for a multi-week sailing trip around Maine the summer after her junior year. The Ritt Kellogg Memorial Fund, created by the Kellogg family to honor their son Ritt, a CC alumnus who died in a mountain climbing accident, provides CC students money for thoroughly planned backcountry trips.

Hoff researched Ritt Kellogg’s life before applying for her grant and discovered that he was also an avid sailor. To learn more, she contacted an old friend of Kellogg’s who worked for Outward Bound’s sailing program in Maine, beginning a friendship that eventually procured her a job. After her expedition and later, after graduation, she returned to Maine to work as a sailing instructor for Outward Bound.

Over the course of four years, Hoff lived and worked on 30-foot open sailboats, teaching sailing for weeks straight. She recounts having to sleep like sardines in the boat next to 10 students, stepping onto land very occasionally. To conserve space and bring a personal touch on board, she began crafting journals and bags for her sailing journeys — things that were small and durable.

Starting to tire of constant life on the water, Hoff thought to sell the journals and bags made from scraps of paper and old sails to shops in Maine. “This was kind of a revelation,” she says of her surprise of being able to just walk into a shop and sell her work, “I realized this could be a viable job.”

At one point, Hoff’s mom sent her some old horse tack (leather used in horse equipment) from their farm in Illinois thinking she might be able to use it. This, combined with the sailcloth, evolved into the basis of her current bag designs. Selling to small shops in Maine allowed Hoff to eventually show her work at a trade show. Consequently, orders came in and she moved to New York City, becoming a one-woman designer and producer of bags. “I didn’t have a studio,” Hoff tells, “I was driving a launch boat on the Hudson and making bags on the floor of my apartment in Brooklyn on the side.”

After about a year, Hoff moved to San Francisco, where she currently resides, and has had no trouble finding horse tack and sails to recycle. She is in the process of opening a shop and continues to experiment with sailcloth. Versatile and durable, she has used it for wall dividers, upholstery, drapery, and outdoor furniture.

Although inexpensive, recycled materials present other challenges, says Hoff — they’re inconsistent, require a lot of cleaning, and their supply is not guaranteed. However challenging, she is drawn to the material itself and keeps with it because it’s sustainable and possesses other less tangible qualities: “It has stories to tell, it has age, it has character.”

Hoff will be running another recycling workshop during the Block 6 Design Workshop class. The class, taught by Carl Reed, professor emeritus of art, will work with CC’s student-led Integrative Design Group and Hoff to create recycled items for the Wellness Resource Center. Anything from window coverings to lamps to chairs may be created, bringing student-made character and comfort to this vital facility on campus.

You can check out Hoff’s work on her website.