Teri Greeves
she/her Beadworker Santa Fe, N.M.
About The Artist
An enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe, Teri Greeves has been beading since she was eight years old. Greeves was raised on the Easter Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribe’ Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, where her mother ran a trading post. She began her career as a beadwork artist after winning Best of Show at Santa Fe Indian Market in 1999. She has received recognition for her beadwork through a feature in PBS’ Craft in America, as a Dobkin Fellow from the School of American Research, as the 2016 USA Distinguished Fellow in Traditional Arts and as a 2022 American Craft Council Fellow. Her work has been featured in exhibitions including To Take Shape and Meaning at the North Carolina Museum, The Land Carries Our Ancestors at the National Gallery of Art and Radical Stitch originating at Denver Art Museum. Greeves’ work is also included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design, and the collection of the State of New Mexico, among others. She was a co-curator of Hearts of Our People, a groundbreaking national traveling exhibition of Native American women’s art that opened in 2019. Greeves lives with her husband and two sons in Santa Fe, NM.
About The Work
I started beading around 8 years old, and I’ve never sat my needles down. I say every stitch I take is an act of resistance. Every stitch I take is also a prayer. A prayer for survival, for the joy of life, for our beloved ancestors and our yet-to-come generations.
Teri Greeves, Sons of the Sun, 2024. Dyed hemp silk, various medium beads, precious stones, semi-precious stones, ant rocks, cast sterling silver ants by Keri Ataumbi, 72 × 96 × 2.5 inches. Photo courtesy of Denver Art Museum.
Teri Greeves, Sunboy's Women, 2011. Raw silk, various medium beads, Swarovski crystals, 72 x 72 x 2 inches. Photo by Dan Barsotti.
