With a little time and space here in New York, I’ve been digging up images from the last editorial I did.
Leah Rose, Photographer: Annishinaabe
Lauren Chemin, MUA: Muskoke, Cherokee
Alex Vigil, Model: Mescalero
Terryn Andre, Model: Taos Pueblo
Tiffany Andre, Model: Taos Pueblo
Sheena Begay, Model: Dine
Zinnia, Model: Mexican
Shania Cunningham, Model
Ashley Hafstead, Stylist Assistant
Hunter Baker, Director of Videography
Opened July 12, The Way I Was Woven is a showcase of 10 fine artworks created over the last 3 years in New Mexico. On view July 12 - September 2 2025 at Momo Santa Fe.
Calling down the rain.
When you live in the desert, you learn the various types of rain that befall the land. There are male rains, there are female rains. Cloud invoke a sense of wonder, a knowing of what is to come, a prayer for abundance.
Su:Dagi O’wud Doakog. Water is Life.
I departed California shortly after the wildfires had destroyed neighborhoods in La and once again, I began thinking about the element that provides all life, down the water that holds us inside the womb as babies. Everything on this planet depends on water. Water is cleansing and a simple practice each week can help us to keep our spirits clean. Bathing is not only relaxing but a subtle reminder on how to blend into the element that comprises a large percentage of our bodies. Speaking loving words and praying into water is one of my favorite rituals, one I learned many years ago in the early morning of Tipi. The seasons we are exposed too on this planet remind us that all life comes, goes and exists because of water. Living here in Santa Fe, I eagerly await the monsoon season as it’s presence blooms a dry summer.
I’m always thining about the colors I find peaceful when I am at home in the desert of Arizona. The delicate color of ciolim before it blooms is a gentle sage, I can easily imagine the color in it’s environment as I write. In appreciating the delicate nature of greens, what it represents in my mind, in my heart and for the land, I wanted to create a work that honors the balance of life with water, and, life without it. This piece represents calling down the rains so they will blanket the Earth in new sprouts, seeds will crack open and a verdant reality will return.
Embers Collection was released the second week of November after months of planning, dreaming, execution and production. I am grateful to Kate Nelson, who published a piece in the Huffington Post about the collection two weeks back. Please view PRESS to click the image & read article.
2024 proved to be one bonkers of a year and much of the time, I honestly felt like I was doing my best each & everyday to chin up it with high highs, low lows. That is always the challenge as a professional creative, learning to ride the waves of this unknown path. Building fires for myself has become one of my favorite pastimes in New Mexico throughout all seasons and the symbology of embers within the ash is what inspired the collection. I’ve often wanted to powder my palms in the ash after I’ve thrown all I need to in the fire and contemplate what to build afterwards. Embers are spark that we can chose to reignite a fire with, or permit to fizzle for good in smokey gray & black soot.
I sourced 50lbs of churro wool fleece which I delicately washed to reflect the curl of smoke that rises once I’ve added more substance to the fire. The perfect little dainty tops where woven into the Ember Smoke Tie Dress alongside the Cinder Smoke Cowl Neck, a subtle lanolin present for texture rising upwards to the sky like a prayer. Black soot, dark ebony wood that’s been kissed by fire, tobacco brown for that wood that keeps the flame & heat going strong, ashen white reflects the cleanliness of everything having faded back to nothing. As it’s the cooler months, merino & alpaca comprise the base for all the garments with subtle weft decor throughout like striation in large pieces of cedar & pine I burnt this year.
I am so grateful to my incredible team that supported this visual journey in the cold rain and rising winter. It’s a good thing all the wearables are warm as that was indeed a chilly, long day running around the land with an arm full of jewelry & textiles. Here are some of the images I thoroughly loved producing.
It’s the end of August and I am cleaning up a few larger textiles that have been waiting to be finished. I’ve been contemplating the real root of where gold fiber comes into play into my work. The way I often translate gold is into the Sun God sphere, a bright, royal element that reflects the eternal light of the sun for radiance, warmth, and illumination. Much like the sun’s light, there is an element of growth that takes place under with, and life with would not be in existence without it. Inca’s, Aztec’s, Egyptians, Chimu people had a strong presence of larger gold chest plates for the higher echelons of society, and I can’t begin to fathom what an incredible experience that must have been to be adorned in such works.
After completing a new work, I intentionally placed the textile design in the center where in ancient times, a gold chest place would have sat. Chimu gold has mesmerized me for years and when I did my larger beaded chest pieces years back, there was an undercurrent noting my ancient artifact reference. So, in designing new works for the Fall Winter Collection, I’ve chosen to share a few of the old works so when collectors take a moment to appreciate the detailing of the upcoming series, they will know a little more about the ancient works are ever present in my mind. Although this piece is much more focused on the blocks of layered red tones & hues, I wanted to reference it as the placement was designed to inspire textiles as adornment.
Wrapping up my days here at my second artist residency in Terlingua, Texas. Years back, I had the pleasure of visiting this landscape with my partner at the time, and I recall falling in love with the landscape then. The heat, not so much but there is something so beautiful about summer eve in the quietude of the evening, when the starlight is twinkling and dancing at you like sirens in water. The beginning of June, I began reconnecting with the night and my relationship, during the warm months, has continued.
After settling into the gorgeous casita, framed with concrete and reflecting the grey strata found out in the land with a minimalistic design, I set too on my project. With all of the monsoon weather New Mexico has been benefiting from, and more importantly, the magic I find within the season, I wanted to convey something simplistic as a calling down of the rain & lightning. So, in an unusual fashion, I minimally packed 2 cotton yarns in turquoise & black. I began to weave the imprint lightning strikes have had in my sight the last month solid, empowering myself in my meditative practice to embrace that which I can also fear. When a lightning strike happens nearby, everything whites out. I’ve been in two of these so far: One took place the first summer I relocated to New Mexico after carrying groceries inside and the thunder just about inhaled every atom of me into it’s tumultuous roar meanwhile an eerie grey dappled with yellow seeped out my side eye sight. The second was a complete white out on a patio, 360 degrees around, while meeting my two dear friends for the first time at Bishops Lodge. It was electrifying and equally, terrifying. Since then, I have found myself both entranced and often paranoid by it’s presence. It’s like life, artistic life.. There are moments I am still afraid of the unknown future with this career and upon others, I feel like Captain Dan yelling at the helm of the ship in the middle of a hurricane beckoning for it all to come get me. Forest Gump reference for anyone reading. So, I figured I’d focus on this simple two toned work in my classic lightning pattern to be transformed into a Stevie Cape.
The heat sweltered by day, the starlight christened my experience here by night all along encountering the warmest of creatives here in process with me. Everyone clung to their casitas by day and we all ran into one another in the evenings or whenever the pangs of hunger called us to the main house. Having the opportunity to share space, be in my own space, reflect, listen, share has been exactly what I hoped for. I often miss the creative conversations of individuals pursuing their dreams through their hands in Santa Fe, and I can’t quite tell you why there isn’t enough of that. Perhaps everyone who is an actual artist pursuing a professional career is hustling the way I am, perhaps there are too many hermits healing. Whatever the reason be, the chance to be spread out, dreaming, exploring, painting, drawing, writing, shooting, weaving, sculpting has been the perfect fill me up before I head home.
I had the chance to connect and play shoot with Meredith Williams & Mackenzie Jones, both young creatives from Austin. Finally, a pathway to connecting with more like minds and playful spirits in Texas has taken shape. I’ve been desiring to expand and share more of the work in Texas so here it is. In short, I felt the creating of this work, titled “ Turquoise Lightning Bearing Down Upon the Land” reflects an offering to the Celestial Beings up above, an honoring of all that befalls during the monsoon time as the land waits to be quenched. Lightning reflects electricity, the radiance we find within ourselves and from around us as we open ourselves up to receive; Lightning is also that opportunity to confront the fears we face in our impermanence of all things in life, building our courage as we walk to the inevitable land of death and beyond.
This residency has proven to be just what I wanted, and needed. My mind is refreshed with new perspectives, my nose is tinted with the scent of Creosote, I’m holding a few new ideas for exploring natural dyes a bit more but on paper, and I’m itching to learn more about the history of Texas.
Today feels like the song “ Some Velvet Morning “ by Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood. I recommend you put that song on spotify if you’re reading this.
I’m attempting to write more of the blog so the audience, the collectors, the curious visitors to my website are welcomed into my mind. I’ve always been a writer, writing is how we communicated in my household when we weren’t able to find the right words to say growing up. I recall the moment my English teacher in highschool told me I should explore my gifts there after my grandfather passed and I wrote a piece about him. Typically, my written process is an expulsion of words & thoughts that ruminate far too long in my mind at times, upon others, caffeine fueled musings that barrel out in the mornings. I enjoy writing in my journal when I’m heartbroken as there is only so much we can say about the process in words to friends but I rarely write when I’m happy, so it’s a new trial for me here.
In my late teens, I used to chat on AOL, lipstick & cigarettes & make out club, a platform comparable facebook or myspace for those in the alternative music sphere. We used to write quirky profiles and list all the bands we liked, chatting about our favorite songs & era’s of music that moved us. It reminds me how important music is to my life, to my creative walk in this lifetime. Silence is teaching me new songs these days but it is music, the way it tantalizes my ears to open up minds eye visions that moves me the most beyond all visual arts. I also say that as a visual artist. I will forever be in awe of the way a Rothko can steal one’s breath the way Nils Frahm can steal my heart or the way The Rachels will remind me of the time I was 23 in the summer season of my life in Ashland, Oregon, balancing myself on the railroad tracks as the album played in my headphones and I popped Rainer cherries in my mouth fresh from the farmers market. I remember that moment because all I wanted to do was to plant fruit seeds everywhere I traveled in the world without fully understanding the relationship behind planting seeds, water, soil and season. I was whimsical to say the least with my desires to bring more beauty and watch trees sprout everywhere tho! There is such a metaphor for care of the planet in wanting to plant seeds everywhere and watch trees grow. Am I the only person that wants to hug redwoods that have been there for centuries and listen to the steadfast wisdom they speak of only when you grow close to their bark? The impact of humans on the landscape has meant the removal of forests and trees, of the shade & strength we seek in a blazing hot summer and we need to ground ourselves against something firm so we don’t melt. Am I the only person who drifts back into time before Westward Expansion brought about the demise of small communities in traditional housing and wishes I could have seen it? Before asphalt was a thing, before 5g towers killed birds and made the landscape metallic? This is why I often label myself as Gil from Midnight in Paris, a nostalgic time traveler who feels grateful for the opportunity to share my thoughts world wide in hopes of finding like minding kin, and who equally curses the way species continue to go extinct because of our modern imprint. I digress…
Someone from my previous era of online chatting found me two days ago and I sent off a long email explaining my personal lore with New Mexico. Sometimes, I forget, how magical my unfolding into this state was. A long time of 13 years in the making before I moved here. Now, four years in, it’s began feeling magical again perhaps because I feel unattached. Attachment, I am learning as this stage of my life, is a thief of joy much like comparison. So, I am practising non attachment to happiness, to the constant flow state, to the steadiness because all of that is impermanent. But right now, in comparison to my last blog post the beginning of June, I am happy. Really happy. Life is flowing and my creativity abounds. I am proud of the work I’m creating, I am proud of who I am and I am proud of myself for always trying to let go, let be, live and keep my heart open to new surprises around the corner. In recounting the magical tale of my story to New Mexico to this person, I’m feeling the enchantment with it all again. Right up to the point I have been staying up till 2am weaving this new work the last two weeks every night, stepping outside around midnight to feel the temperature on my skin at that time, to inhale the quietude aside from the few street racers slamming on the gas and wasting a tank in a matter of seconds. I’m reconnecting with the night, something I often race to avoid in the dead of winter for coziness. It’s like a starlight blanket of summer that wraps you in with warmth, playfulness and a siren’s song that sings you to the water’s edge for a mid day bathe.
Whenever someone asks you what makes you happy, what would you say? In this moment of life, I would share the happiness I’m presently feeling is the connection to friends, connection to myself, my heart as it feels appreciated by those in my life. Without our mirrors, without friends, life really feels dull. I’ve always been surrounded by an eccentric & eclectic group of friends so in this moment of abundance, the happiness shines out of my eyes. My life is always an ebb and flow here in New Mexico, the state of consistency being one that I have struggled with strongly so now it is swinging high with beautiful company, I love to share it.
Here is the piece in agave fiber, horsehair, churro wool, jute & wool I have been engaged in, hand combing every thread, experiencing a tension the higher I rise towards the top of the weaving, which honestly makes me squirm like nails on a chalkboard. I never knew I’d feel a visceral reaction to tension this way on a loom but I don’t like it being so thick I have to actively use my left middle finger to hold it taught just to weave the weft in.
My house. When I wrote my manifestation list for my home in New Mexico, I was specific about the patio as lounging with my stereo beaconing loud music in summer heat is good living. There is after all, that old Spanish flavor of siesta time here and a hammock speaks loudly to that on the patio.
June 8, 2024.
I can smell a storm coming my way on the patio at present. The hammock has begun to ripple it’s tassels in the rising winds that speak of change above my head. Rotund crevices between clouds run a deep gray as they allude to a thunderstorm about to drumbeat atop of me, reminding me, change is inevitable. The sunshine of the afternoon swung into a monsoon. Change, is consistent.
I will never quite understand how we artists, the nutty enough ones who make the decision to embrace the full complexity of this path, in light, dark, ebb, flow, abundance & drought, mental wellness & illness, hold the gift of being able to transmute the pain we experience into something profound beautiful, but, we do. Across the board, the artists whose work has been most impressionable to me have lived lives of scarcity: Vices & addictions, emotional unrest, depression or darkness as I call it these days, schizophrenia, low self worth, survival of physical, sexual abuse and violence, take the torture that was impressed on them and transform it into art collectors pay thousands, if not millions for. I have been in a spell of dark depression as of late and it prompted my removal from social media for sometime to embrace it, as if it’s a tunnel I am forced to travel through, until I can transmute my inner struggle and shout back at the light at the other end: You didn’t destroy me and you won’t. Sometimes, that is what the battle is: It’s a surrender and allowance of the darkness to fully invade oneself and allow it to teach you something, like a dark spirit that pops up in the canyon’s where very few human’s wander. It always has something to teach you, to warn you about and perhaps, teach you to confront another layer of fear within yourself before it will permit you to pass. I know the last few weeks have left me feeling timid in moments, and upon others, the confidence of strong, powerful recognition that depression is another sliver in the spectrum of life that can only further encourage to embrace this short, precious life we are given.
I’ve spent the last week immersed in something new, something inspired by the Hopi Artist Dan Namingha’s paintings. Upon my early arrival into Santa Fe, I recall walking into his gallery and I found a painting that has been imbedded in my memories since then. It was predominately black with a Kachina face in the darkness, or at least that is what my mind recalls. Our minds have a way of fibbin’ things into reality or distorting the memory at times. The intentional usage of fluorescent strokes is what also contrasted in a way that caused me to remember it. So, as I chose to stay inside my bubble of darkness of this last week, I made a decision to try something new. With podcasts about hypnotherapy, and lectures about the ancient Minoans of Crete, I began to weave. 4 panels later, all I could think about it…
Is how any of this beauty come come through the utter darkness I’ve been feeling. It’s a silent astonishment and testament to why I have not given up on my art. It’s that additional thread that interlocked itself to my DNA when I was born so instead of a double helix, I hold 3 strands. Something uniquely so beautiful about my soul, intrinsic with a level of devotion to the path of beauty in this lifetime that no matter how ugly the emotions I feel inside can fan themselves out, I will always hold a voice that knows how to translate the inner light into something even better.
Dan Namingha
Dan Namingha
Life as Art with Rhiannon Griego
Click here to read the interview.
An interview with the marvelous brand Pampa based out of Byron Bay, Australia. I absolutely love, love love everything about this company. Designed in Australia, woven in Argentina, this company aligns with my ethics across the board for producing high quality textile goods with the indigenous Mapuche weavers.
What an amazing day this was shooting with Jenna Peffley & the team to showcase BedThreads beautiful linens in my sanctuary. Click below to read the interview! You can also shop their products here
Here is my interview with the Warp & Weft Publication. I was delighted to partake in this incredible series focused on textile artists & weavers.
As the issue has been out for a month +, I feel it’s appropriate to share with all who wander here now. What a sweet opportunity this was to mode, and style knitwear designed by Vogue and their adjacent designers. Shot by my dear friend Ashley Hafstead here in New Mexico.
Publication promoting the opening of Ace Hotel Brooklyn.
This feature on TL Magazine includes a few of the textile artists who designed artworks for the rooms. If you happen to be in Brooklyn, NY, do stop by and inquire about peeking into the rooms. I designed 20 works.
Celebrating this wonderful feature in the Spring Issue of American Craft Magazine 2022.
Included in the article are two images of my Rainbow Cape & the Tobacco Drape Cape in merino featured on my handsome boyfriend.
You may read about my work in the issue here.
I love it when clients send me snapshots of my work on tv shows as I don’t own a tv myself. Here are a few rough screenshots of the Adobe Kimono on a character in the latest HBO SHOW “ Made for Love “ 2021.
Several years back when visiting Tulum, I walked into one of my favorite bouqiues I’ve yet to experience and it was the portal to the brand Caravana from Mexico. I have been following their exquisite work, all handwoven by artisans in Mexico in the Yucutan. It was with joy I participated in their Free Thinkers Interview Series. Please have a read below.
Shot by Matthew Gamelan.
Rhiannon Griego joins CARAVANA Freethinkers 2021 Edition as a creative medium whose hands have found inspiration in weaving and jewelry designing. A native to the connection felt between humans and nature, the natural world is what she’s tapped into through her exploration of fiber, art, and expression of the soul.
“There are no mistakes, everything is intended to be.”
What we wear is an expression of our soul, of its vibrancy and I treat clothing like everyday art.
A visual artist interview with photographer and talented mezcal maker Tony Farfalla. We spent a winters day lost in White Sands, New Mexico filming this piece. The story behind this communion with Tony was quite special; He and I met 10 years ago and ventured to New Mexico together for our first time. A decade ago, I fell in love with this land and I could feel stories of past lifetimes pulling me here, murmuring a sense of home into my ears as my eyes were so overwhelmed by the magnificent beauty. Whenever I’ve imagined myself living here and welcoming in the kindred spirits that have been meaningful to my life, I have always envisioned myself welcoming Tony in my adobe walled home. As a dear friend, fellow creative and soulful human, the exchange of creative seeds has been continous for the last decade. Now that I am home, it was so heart warming to me, especially after not having any close friends upon landing here during a pandemic.
White Sands itself holds a very personal story to me. When I was 13, my grandfather passed and I was heart-broken as my grandfather held such a prominent place in my life. He was a story-teller, adventurer, lively and passionate spirit so rooted in family. I used to wander amongst his books in his library and it was my initial intro to the American Southwest; his library was full top to bottom with books on the settling of New Mexican Territory, it’s catalogues of histories of Indigenous peoples, it’s navy hardback books dusty with legacies of wars made by men all across the globe and I would time travel while my little fingers ran across the titles. Upon his passing, I found a brochure for White Sands tucked between the books and the my curiosity was piqued. For 25 years, I waited to greet this place my grandfather has visited and felt some impact from by scribbling words on the brochure in response to it’s breath-taking beauty. I had every intention of sitting down around sunset, smoking a tobacco and honoring my grandfather’s impression on me upon arriving. Alas, sometimes, the creative rush takes a hold and with a sunset beginning to settle over the cool sands of winter and a rose filled sky dappled with baby pink clouds, I couldn’t resist the urge to go with the flow in front of the camera. Here is what we captured in a place, in a time I will always cherish. I’m grateful to Madre Mezcal for this Woven Landscapes portrait.
You may find Madre Mezcal here and read about it’s fascinating collection of artist interviews.
Hopped a fence for a quiet place to be for a moment. The chill bit me solid and yet, I couldn’t help but forget the circulating sensations in my body as the sun began to set and the spectacle of colors debuted. I plan to shoot here sometime soon and this is the unadulterated beauty, free from human form, I call home.
