We were lucky to catch up with Suzin Daly recently and have shared our conversation below.
Suzin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
Taking a Risk My description of taking a risk is like running as hard as you can, jump off a cliff and pray there’s water at the bottom. As I write this I’m still falling and can’t tell if there is water or solid ground at the bottom. So dear reader, I have just crossed the 75th year of life and I have no f*cking idea how things will turn out. What I can do is share the story of choices and risks I have taken.
I have had two interests in my life, art and horses. I have weaved between the two as long as I can remember. My parents pushed, encouraged the arts. Neither parent was interested or even liked horses. They did tolerate my passion for horses and I got some riding lessons during my teenage years. During my high school years I did excel in the arts. When it came time to picking a college, my mother picked School of Visual Arts in New York City. Looking back this was a phenomenal time to be in art school and in the city. The 1960’s an era of long hair, hip huggers, bell bottoms and free love [thanks to Margret Sanger Women’s Clinic]. I was on my own and out from under my parent’s control. In reflection, I was little on the shy side, not very worldly and definitely very naïve. I’ll share an example.
In my first year in art school I was living in a women’s residence hotel. One day while I was having breakfast in the cafeteria a young woman sat down at my table. She introduced herself and said, “We can’t figure out if you’re gay or not?” I turned around and to see who the ‘we’ were. There were four young women staring back at me and they looked friendly, smiling and waved. I replied that I was very gay and I an art student. At the time I didn’t know the word gay meant lesbian. They invited me to hang out with them. That evening we all went to a bar. After fifteen minutes I noticed all the people were female and some I wasn’t sure what they were. When I got kissed and her tongue tickled my tonsils I started asking questions. I did learn the difference between gay and happy. During my first year living in the city I got caught up on a whole lot of life experiences and I live to write about it.
Being the best creative A art student in high school changes dramatically once in art school. Now, I am in an environment where everyone was at the top. Some were brilliant. Even though I loved being at the School of Visual Arts, I didn’t feel very confident in myself as an artist. I tend to be a bit competitive; I was finding myself being intimated. Everyone seemed to know more, be more creative and have better ideas than me. In my last year of art school I was accepted into the D.I. Group Gallery on Third Avenue. Instead of being excited and enthusiastic about my future as an artist, I ended up withdrawing from the gallery. Within one year I left New York City moved back to Long Island, where I had grown up. This was a big disappointment to my parents. It was an even bigger disappointment to them when I decided to pursue my passion for horses.
I went to England and earned a British Horsemaster Instructor Certificate. When I returned I taught riding at local stables. In 1978 I met a nice young man named Owen Daly. He was the complete opposite of me. He was IT, Data Base Main frame, compared to the fact I’m technically challenged. I married him within six months. He supported my love of horses. That was good enough for me, my parents were grateful I didn’t marry someone from NYC Bowery. That’s another story. Within a year of marriage I bought my first horse dapple grey three old thoroughbred with all the saving I had fifteen hundred dollars.
In 1983 we relocated with one horse to the San Francisco bay area. This was a golden era. I ended up at a wonderful stable called Kimberwicke. I taught, trained and competed in Northern California. I also had the opportunity to train with some of the world’s top trainers in the U.S. and Europe through organized clinics. I rose to be one of the top equestrians in my area. California is expensive, and it was growing. Equestrian centers were being sold, torn down for housing developments. It was heartbreaking when Kimberwicke was sold for housing. I relocated to another facility, knowing its time would come. I had always wanted my own farm; I couldn’t find anything under a million. Owen knowing my dream, found a job in Raleigh, North Carolina. Once again, we packed up including one horse headed east.
1990 we bought twenty acres of rolling hills and started building our training stable. With Owen’s help we ran monthly horseshows. I brought in clinicians such as Gold Medalist Tad Coffin. The farm grew I advanced even further earning United States Dressage Federation Medals. I competed on international levels. I was living my dream. My parents weren’t impressed, but accepted the fact I wasn’t going to be a famous artist in NYC.
In 1999 I got into breeding and bought my first stallion, L.A. Baltic Sundance. My artistic background was of great assistance in promoting the business. When consumer camcorders became available and non-linear editing arrived I found myself attracted to the potential for new ways for promotion. To my surprise I enjoyed filmmaking and video editing as much as riding. I had the same desire to master this new craft. It was this desire which motivated me to a whole new risk; I wanted to get into filmmaking and video editing with the goal to be a college professor for film. Since I still had a full running farm, Goddard College was the right fit. It’s a low residency program. During the two and half years studying filmmaking, I slowly started the process of decreasing my business. As training students with their horses left, I did not replace with another. Horse shows stopped, as did having clinics. By the time I graduated 2011 I had sold all my horses and stopped teaching. I would have had that filmmaking instructor’s job, accept my parents were having health problems and they live in Florida. In the end the goal was put on hold.
I come from a dysfunctional family. My mother was a brilliant interior designer, however she was also very mental, Borderline Personality Disorder and My father was a well-known radio personality at the same time was insecure and constantly needing to be recognized for his brilliance. My life was put on hold from 2011 through 2015. I was dealing with my father going into hospice, My mother over medicating, my mother for excitement had a few suicide attempts with pills. She didn’t really want to kill herself she wanted to get everyone’s attention, she felt unloved do to the care my father was getting while dying. My father and I did get some emotional breaks from her. On some of her creative emotional expressions, she was Baker Acted I believe three times. One of these times, my father was feeling pretty good; we went to dinner to celebrate. Those who may be reading this, if you’ve been there you get it, and you’re laughing. Both my parents lived into their nineties, with full faculties and physically functioning. My father passed at ninety-three after three months of hospice care peacefully in his sleep in 2014. My mother got rid of all my father belongings within forty-eight hours. She also went mental and was once again Baker acted. Like the other few times she was released after the usual seventy-two hours. My mother gifted me with passing away peacefully in 2015; she had just turned ninety-five.
I’m free from parent obligation; I sent an unsolicited letter to the independent college that would have hired back when. What the hell, I had nothing to lose. I got a response the very next day in an email. Got an interview on the very day and finally had the job I wanted teaching filmmaking. This was a small private college eighteen minutes from my home. I loved it. I enjoy the college atmosphere, the energy and I got to corrupt all those young minds. I’m proud to write that my Production I class did a documentary about the arts in a local small town. I thought it was very good and entered it in a local film festival. The student’s film was selected and went on to win the documentary genre. What made my job even more fun, the school was okay with Owen joining me. By this time, Owen was retired and in his retirement was pursuing acting. He even had an agent, with his technical skills and my creative ability we created a wonderful film program.
There is an old saying if something is too good to be true, don’t plan on it lasting. Covid hit. Most colleges have an online program going, transitioning for most colleges was an inconvenience, but workable. My little private, for profit college did not have the accreditation to go online. The school scrambled and was able to get one semester to go online and not lose their accreditation. I was able to teach using Google Hangout, thank goodness it was simple. After the semester the school called everyone back to class. Owen asked me to please not go back. This was when we were hearing about tractor trailers filling with dead bodies. I didn’t need the job; this was for personal enrichment, enjoyment and community. I sent in my resignation letter. Which really pissed them off, at the time I had to concur with Owen, I didn’t want to be a statistic.
Let’s do a quick overall just in case you have lost track; I had been a New York City insecure artist who actually got gallery representation, walked away because I didn’t believe I was good enough. I spent thirty plus years as an equestrian living my dream that horrified my parents, made a shit load of money, had some of the top quality international horses and was one of the top trainers and competitors in North Carolina. To walk away from this very successful endeavor to move into a whole new career; which happens to be very technical as a person who is technically challenged. As I write this I’m thinking “What the Fuck?” I am totally blank on what I did during covid, like waking up after a coma and its two years later. Remember my having to deal with my aging parents, well Owen is now dealing with his aging mother of 101, and she has dementia. Good news, there are three other siblings who are involved. Owen does most of the organizing by phone. Since this is about me [my favorite subject] I won’t go into details.
I’m at the age, which was mentioned in the beginning, standing at the beginning of the tunnel, I think I see a pin-prick of light. I’m not going get hired as a film instructor at this point. I’ve walked away from my equestrian endeavors, and another old saying, can’t go home again and I have no desire to. What now? Well dear reader, I decided to face every emotional fear I have had. I didn’t mention that I am dyslexic and a modest learning disability, I also can’t pronouns synonym. I have no idea what a proper sentence structure is. This hasn’t stopped me from memoir writing. Now that my parents are passed, I can write all the stories of my dysfunctional family. It’s so therapeutic. If anyone happens to enjoy David Sedaris, they would probably enjoy my short stories. The people who love Sedaris are usually dysfunctional themselves and enjoy knowing they are not alone.
That brings me to the finale of this story. I have returned to my beginnings. Back at being an insecure, but determined artist, I create experimental films, working on collages using mostly organic materials, pastels and drawings. I am a procrastinator and find ways to make myself do something. I continue to write short stories and I send a story to The New Yorker monthly with a very creative cover letter. I have a better chance of winning the lottery without a ticket than getting a story printed in The New Yorker. At the end of 2024 a book with ten short stories will be printed. The planned title – Short Stories, The New Yorker, never printed.
In summary, go ahead take a risk run as fast as you can, jump and don’t look down just pray there’s water.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
This is covered in the Taking Risk…………….
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
I’m a big believer in critical research. I have had three dramatic changes of careers in my life. For those in the creative arts there is a wonderful series called ART:21. It covers t every kind of art form. List of books I have read and written about is very long. One book that stands out is My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe by Sarah Greenough. Books on memoir writing and fun read in general I recommend Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont and Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. For those in the equestrian world of dressage, My Horses, My Teachers, Horse and Rider by Alois Podhajsky and a must have The Dressage Horse by Harry Boldt. For my filmmaking studies and career, the list is way too long, here’s a start – Women Filmmaking in Early Hollywood b6y Karen Ward Mahar, It’s Only A Movie: Alfred Hitchcock a personal biography, Film Art an Introduction by David Bordwell and Issues in Feminist Film Criticism edited by Patricia Erens. Whatever you’re interested in, read, watch films on the subject keep a bibliography of everything.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.suzindaly.com
- Instagram: @szndaly
- Youtube: @SzDaly
- Other: Vimeo — https://vimeo.com/user817746
Image Credits
photography – Owen Daly or Suzin Daly