Rhiannon Skye Tafoya (Eastern Band Cherokee and Santa Clara Pueblo) comes from a lineage of basket-weavers on both the paternal and maternal sides of her family, and the practice of traditional basketry has long had a profound influence on her art—even before she knew how to make baskets herself.
Tafoya received her MFA in Print Media from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and her BFA in Printmaking and Sculpture from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally at venues including the International Print Center New York, 516Arts, and Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. Her work is also housed in special collections including the U.S. Library of Congress, Kohler Art Library, and the Bainbridge Museum of Art. She published her first artist book, Ul’nigid’, in the spring of 2020. She has worked in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms ranging in sizes from hand-held to life-size, in media including serigraph (screen-printing), relief and letterpress printmaking, digital design, paper-weaving, and book-making.
She began weaving paper to connect with the art of basketry before she had any idea how to make Cherokee white oak baskets, which are crafted from hardwood and dyed naturally using walnuts, berries and other native plants. Though her maternal grandmother was a Cherokee basket-maker, Tafoya did not learn the craft from her. Drawn to the medium of basketry but without a knowledge of its particulars, she began using the paper and prints she had on hand to create woven works.
After moving back home to Cherokee, North Carolina in the spring of 2022, Tafoya immediately sought out apprenticeships with two of her community’s renowned basket-makers, Louise Goings and Pat Welch. The time she’s spent learning methods of harvesting, dyeing, processing and weaving techniques from them have greatly influenced her work over the past two years: “I am thinking more about plant relatives and how they inspire and guide our traditional art and, in my case, my prints and paper weavings,” Tafoya says, adding that her work is also about her growing relationship with basket-makers in her community and her path into keeping the basket-making tradition alive.
In her upcoming show, the artist centers cultural teachings including basketry, plant identification, foraging and harvesting knowledge. She also acknowledges and honors her basket-making teachers. In addition to several new screen prints and letterpress prints, Tafoya has created new works in woven paper. These are crafted from ornamental letterpress prints and split fountain multi-color prints from recent print residencies including InCahoots in Petaluma, CA, Crows Shadow Institute of the Arts in Pendleton, OR, and Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA.
Tafoya’s work has always honored her loved ones and ancestors, elevating themes of cultural teachings, Cherokee language preservation, motherhood and personal and familial narratives through her meticulously crafted designs, patterns, prints and weavings. While basketry has always been an integral influence in her artistic practice, her newly-gained knowledge of the process of creating white oak baskets is evident in her recent work, deepening its connections to her cultural heritage. The designs and motifs she creates in her prints and paper weavings “are directly influenced by my time spent in my community as an inquisitive learner,” the artist says.
