HELLO! I’m Susan Uehara Rakstang and live in Chicago, IL with my husband, Bob, and our Cockapoo pup,Tony. 

I was born in Hawai`i to parents of Okinawan descent. My father moved to Chicago for his education in the trades and called my mother, brother, and me to join him when I was three years old. 

I earned my undergraduate degree in Art Education with a minor in Ceramics at Northern Illinois University and in the mid-1970s, began my studies for my Master of Architecture from the University of Illinois, Chicago. After practicing architecture for nearly twenty years, I sold my firm and spent a few years revisiting my love of making pottery and playing the piano. I then accepted a position as University Architect/Associate VP of Facilities at a university in Chicago's southern suburbs, and after ten great years there, I decided to retire...and that is where the core of my memoir begins.