Eric-Paul Riege

2025 Stepping Stone Grantee

I am a maker and artist working in woven sculpture, installation, wearable art, collage, and performance. I honor the Diné (Navajo) worldview of hózhó which encompasses the values of beauty, balance, and goodness in all things physical and spiritual and its bearing on everyday experience. My work is a celebration of ancestral knowledge passed down by my mothers family. I am a descendent of weavers and fiber artists extending back to Na'ashjé'ii Asdzáá (Spider Woman); a Holy Person who protects Diné peoples and taught us how to weave. I consider all that I do a form of weaving. When there is a warp there is a weft and a cross (+) happens. I was told by one of my grandmothers that we adorn our body with jewelry so our Holy People can find and follow us and that our jewelry is listening and feeling with us. I began making large textile earrings as totems of memory called jaatloh4Ye’iitsoh meaning “ear rope for the big gods/monsters” which mimics and embellish the traditional looped form of stacked beads. My jewelry and weaving pieces also deal with economies and cultures of the marketplace, especially as related to authenticity and what is perceived as authentic. The expectations around value and spectatorship particularly in materiality and presentation allows me to play with the precious and non-precious and the high and low.