KERI ATAUMBI (Kiowa, b.1977 )

Keri Ataumbi was raised on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design before moving to Santa Fe in 1990. There she worked as a landscape designer while attending the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her formative years were influenced by Shoshone, Arapaho and Kiowa aesthetic.

Ataumbi describes her work as being centered around value systems meaning that she combines materials that are considered traditionally valuable in the Non-Native world with materials that are precious in Native communities. Incorporating her Kiowa identity into her practice, Ataumbi creates work that bridges the past and the present to create contemporary fine jewelry.

Ataumbi’s jewelry can be found in the collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Native American, Santa Fe; the Minneapolis Institute of Art Minneapolis, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe; and the Heard Museum, Phoenix.

She currently lives and works in the Cerrellos Hills outside Santa Fe, NM.

To learn more about Keri Ataumbi, visit our Native American Collection page to see jewelry from our inventory of exquisite Native American jewelry and purchase the catalog Material Beauty: Modern Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblo Artist Jewelers, which accompanied our 2018 exhibition here.