A conversation with Ramona Quintero

Interviews, January 2026. The conversation took place in Spanish at the workshop in San Andrés Cohamiata. Translated and lightly edited.

Sol & Stone: Tell us about how you started.

Ramona Quintero: I started at seven. My grandmother put a needle in my hand and told me not to leave the table until I had finished a row. I cried. I did not leave the table. By the end of the week, I had made my first chevron, badly. By the end of the month, I had made one I was proud of. My grandmother kept that one. I think she still has it somewhere.

S&S: Three generations of beadwork in your family. What does tradition mean to you?

RQ: Tradition is not the same pattern every year. Tradition is the pattern that survives the year. My grandmother modified what her mother taught her. I modify what my grandmother taught me. The thread is the tradition, not the pattern.

S&S: You said you dreamed last winter's pattern. Can you say more?

RQ: The diamond-within-diamond pattern, in green and gold, that we did for the Cempasúchil collection. I dreamed it in November, before Día de los Muertos. The center of the diamond was the marigold. The outer points were the sun. I sketched it the next morning, in pencil, on the back of a calendar. We finished the first piece in February.

S&S: Do you sketch all your patterns?

RQ: Most of them. Some I work out directly with the beads, on the table, without paper. Those are usually the ones that take longer.

S&S: What do you want people in New York and Paris to know about Wixárika beadwork?

RQ: That a real woman, with a name, made it. That she was paid before the customer paid for it. That the bead at the bottom of the strand is her signature. And that the next bead, on the next piece, will probably be a little different. That is the point.