Isa Guadalupe Medina is a multidisciplinary fiber artist whose work blurs the line between fashion, fine art, and storytelling. Rooted in her upbringing between Tijuana and San Diego, Isa draws inspiration from the natural world, her cultural heritage, and the ephemeral beauty of life itself. Through beadwork, textiles, and immersive collaborations, her pieces become living narratives—meditative, tactile, and rich with meaning.
Where do you find inspiration for your designs?
My main inspiration comes from the fauna and flora I encounter in my surroundings, my culture, documentaries, and books.
I appreciate walking specially in nature and try to immerse myself in it as much as I can. Being outdoors is my favorite pastime and my main source of inspiration. The sounds, color, textures, animals I see and interact with bring me joy and this sense of intrigue on how things grow and move in the world.
When I bead certain animals I try to imitate the movement of their bodies through the placement of the beads and create certain figures to tell a story they are thinking about.
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For example in “La Garza” I tried to capture the essence of the catastrophe of pollution happening in one of my favorite places in the San Diego/Tijuana region, Tijuana River Estuary (a place that lives between the two cities I grew up in).
This headpiece has sort of “hidden” figures resembling the heron’s thoughts on what her next prey/meal will be and what she is trying to protect as well, her home from being destroyed. The native plants and fish are embellished in this headpiece in a monochromatic way to have the piece look simple yet when coming close and interacting with the piece one can see the heron’s mind through abstract beaded imagery of her surroundings.
What do you do to keep yourself motivated and interested in your work?
I have different practices. I have a clothing line where I create more daily wear pieces and when I get to a point where I want to do something else I either bead, or draw.
Camping or simply being outside in nature helps me clear my mind and inspires me to create when I see something that captures my attention.
Can you tell us about the inspiration and process of one of your works? How does a new work come about Do you plan your work out ahead of time, or do you just dive in with your materials and start playing?
The process is somewhat different in all of my projects, sometimes it is well planned and scheduled while other times I simply visualize something and just begin creating, letting the imagination and hands do their work.
A deep research based project was “Simbiosis”. It talks about the effects of global warming and the bleaching process in the coral reefs. The clothing collection includes a layering of mixed media of embroidery, appliqués, and beading with the use of color and transparency of silk organza to replicate the sea.
The collection has a transition of color from bright colorful garments to the discoloration (loss of coral nutrients) becoming white and later becoming a murky dark brown (when the algae covers the dead corals).
While on the other hand “Aurora del Pensamiento” was simply made by fragments. It started as a couple of small beading doodles that had no final intention on what they would become and over time began taking form into a colorful headpiece. Some shapes were random and others somehow taking shape as I was beading.
I say It is an example of what my mind looks inside, lots of ideas, feelings and thoughts bursting into abstract shapes about to take form and simply flowing through the space.
Do you prefer the kind of project that is challenging and requires attention, or the kind where you get in your meditative zone and enjoy the process?
I think that all my projects involve both aspects and I enjoy the entire process. The attention aspect comes when doing the research and deciding on the illustration. The research part consists of observing and reading on certain topics which requires a lot of attention.
The meditation begins when I start beading and the hours just go by and by. I enjoy the slow process and taking a long time to create something. It is not that I am going slow, but the thoroughness of working with small beads makes filling a space take longer. There is something special about the process of embroidering with beads that I appreciate. For me the process of creating a piece is the most fun and when I finish, I am sad yet happy to complete it and take the piece to its next phase, photography.
The process of photographing the pieces is also fun, bringing the piece to life through photo or video whether on a model or a still life capture.
For example in “La Pesca del Día” Ariadna, the photographer, and I played around with staging still life settings for the beaded fish. This series was my first time photographing my creations without a model and thanks to Ari the images came out beyond my expectations.
Another reason why I love the photography and film part of my work is that I get to work and collaborate with different talented creative people. I love working with others and also alone so I feel really lucky to be able to do both with what I do for a living.
What different creative media do you use in your work?
I personally work with glass beads and fabric, through creating clothing and hand beaded pieces.
As I mentioned before, the aspect of capturing the pieces through a lens is where the pieces transform and come to life. Capturing the movement and mood of a piece is where the collaborations become essential.
One of my favorite pieces I’ve done is “Rojo”, a collaboration with musician and photographer Braulio Lam and model Coco Delgado. Braulio came to me one day and said he wanted to create an image with a red dress in a desert, and I immediately thought of a beaded headpiece and silk garment that would flow through the sand valley.
In this collaboration we used different creative media like beads, silks, photography, film, music, and performance. In the video one can appreciate the essence of movement within the human body, the different mediums and textures of the costume, the sound and imagery of the colors of the desert. Braulio and I share a mutual love for creating and appreciating art in film, and through our research, references, and scouting locations brought us to create this visual experience of the color red.
Do you use a sketchbook, journal, or technology to plan or keep track of ideas? How does that help your work develop?
I always have a small sketch book on my bedside table just in case I dream or have an idea and can just jot it down quickly and not forget about it when the morning comes. I try to have one in my daily bag when going on walks with my dog or on the go just in case an idea pops up.
My sketchbooks don’t look necessarily nice but it is a way of keeping my random thoughts, dreams and sketch ideas for future projects. Sometimes when I forget to take my sketchbook I simply write it on my phone or when driving, record it on a voice memo to hear it later and develop it more when getting home on my sketchbook.
While some ideas are hard to write down, they just live repeatedly in my head and hope that I never forget them. I feel that my mind is never steady and if it is I believe that it is cooking up something to bring up and create a new idea.
There are so many ideas in my mind that still haven’t found a space in my schedule to be created but they are there just waiting for the right time, which I find exciting.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?
I have two. One is my parents always said to me: if you can’t find a job you like, create it. And the other one, when presenting my thesis project Jaguar Azul, one of the critics mentioned that I lived in this space between fashion and art and told me to keep going in that direction.
I love that I don’t have to decide or limit myself into identifying or doing one specific thing.
Taking my education in fashion design and combining it with my passion for art has brought me to this performative way of thinking. There is always some sort of movement involved with what I make, even if the final outcome is just a still image.
I want the viewer to experience the image as a whole and not just the clothing or beaded piece itself. Every design I create, I imagine it in another dimension of its own. I play movies in mind of the setting and design as I create that sometimes I cannot express through writing or drawing, the imagery is just replaying in my mind. It is beautiful when I can connect with other creatives that I don’t need to say much and somehow read my mind to create these scenes, like in “Jaguar Azul” and “Espejismo” to name a few.
Tell us about a time when you truly stretched yourself as an artist.
My thesis project, Jaguar Azul:
There comes a point in life that everything comes to an end; things break, situations become unjust, animals become extinct, people die, life goes away. Throughout the years I’ve comprehended that nothing lasts forever and that everything happens for a reason. People come and go, while others stay with you until the end, but each person and moment that has passed have formed part of who we are. During this project surged the need to create something that would involve a lot of time and labor to create that connection and attachment that hurts to let go; just like one attaches to people.
The image of the jaguar dissolving remains engraved in my mind, just like those souls that I have seen pass and have had to let go into another dimension. The blue jaguar represents that pain, the pain of impermanence, of the ephemeral of life; the souls that have died, the friendships and lovers that leave, the injustices that keep happening, the animals in danger of extinction, and all the losses of life.
This hand beaded piece was created for over 600 hours using water soluble thread and fabric. All beads were unsewn and the piece dissolved into the floor within 10 minutes.
I feel that every time I show this project to someone, it resonates with them and even myself up to this day. We have all experienced some type of loss, it is inevitable. In this piece I tried to recreate one of the hardest events in my life that I have seen and felt.
It speaks about the ephemeral and fragility of life and how we have to learn to let go. I feel that this piece prepared me for the things I have lived after it and probably more difficult ones yet to come. A piece that initially was dedicated to my grandmother, became dedicated to all of us as part of this world we share as living creatures.
It is a dedication to us all, to be able to say goodbye with care to those we love and wish them all the best even if they are still alive but maybe their part in our story is over.
Where can people see your work?
One of my pieces, Aurora del Pensamiento, is currently in a group exhibition curated by Kate Stern called Fantastic Fiber at Oceanside Museum of Art in San Diego on view until November 2, 2025. You can also view all my projects and designs through my website isaguadalupe.com .
Interview posted July 2025
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