Skip to main content

Header Navigation

Artists

Teri Greeves

She // Her // Hers

Beadworker

Santa Fe, NM

Teri, a Kiowa woman with brown hair pulled back, smiles at the viewer. She wears glasses with a light pink frame, a blue, yellow, and white checkered shirt, a gray scarf around her neck, and long silver serpent earrings. She sits at a desk in front of a window, with pens and markers, glasses cases, and work supplies visible behind her.

Photo by Mary Neiberg; courtesy of the American Craft Council.

I started beading around eight 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.”

An enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe, Teri Greeves has been beading since she was eight years old. Greeves was raised on the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes’ 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's 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 the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Ontario. Most recently her major work Sons of the Sun was installed at the 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, New Mexico.

Donor -This award was generously made possible by Anonymous.

This artist page was last updated on: 05.07.2025

In the center panel of the image stand three beaded figures with long dark braids, wearing traditional clothing. The center figure is the tallest and wears a feather in their hair and a mask over their eyes. Behind them is a gold backdrop and a sun depicted with black and white diamond shapes. At their feet are two diagonal lines, one of which is embroidered with rectangles of various colors. The side panels are comprised of larger gray rectangular panels with trees, above smaller red panels with spiderwebs.

Sons of the Sun by Teri Greeves, 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. Installed at Denver Art Museum.

Photo courtesy of Denver Art Museum.

The work is comprised of two panels separated vertically. The red panel on the right features a figure with gray braids, wearing a long skirt and a black top with a spiderweb on it. The blue panel on the left features a figure with long black hair who wears a long blue garment with green shapes that evoke the imagery of Earth. There are small stars dotting both panels and a beaded outline of a hand overlaying both panels and containing both figures.

Sunboy's Women by Teri Greeves, 2011. Raw silk, various medium beads, Swarovski crystals, 72 × 72 × 2 inches. Installed at Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

Photo by Dan Barsotti.

A beaded figure with a long black braid faces away from the viewer, toward the golden backdrop. They are wearing a cowboy hat, sunglasses, long earrings, and a shirt.

The Future Looks Bright by Teri Greeves, 2024. Dyed hemp silk, various medium beads, semi-precious stones, german silver, 36 × 48 × 2.5 inches. Private collection.

Photo courtesy of the artist.