About Cristen René
I believe in experiencing life fully and sensorially, in being an active participant rather than an observer. I am drawn to anything that brings me more deeply into my body, my imagination, the natural world and the present moment. Movement, music, making, travel, water, wild places, unfamiliar cultures and the thrill of learning something I don't yet know all feed the same insatiable curiosity. My creative life has never belonged to a single medium; it spills freely into the way I move, travel, explore, sense and experience the world.
I live holistically, with an awareness that body, mind, spirit, nature and creativity are not separate things, but parts of the same whole. Music has always been a powerful current in my life, and some of the moments I feel most connected to spirit are also the most embodied: dancing until thought falls away, disappearing into the flow of creation, or being fully present in play with my children. These are the places where I lose track of myself and somehow feel most like myself.
I believe there is something essential in continuing to be a beginner, in following fascination simply because it calls to me. I would rather touch, taste, hear, wander and discover than experience the world from a distance. Living this way keeps me awake to beauty and continually replenishes the well from which my work emerges.
Motherhood has brought me closer to the mystery of creation than anything else in my life. Through the deeply physical and spiritual experience of carrying, birthing and nourishing my four children, I discovered a force within myself that felt at once ancient and supernatural. It gave me a profound understanding that a woman can be both vessel and force, soft enough to nourish life and powerful enough to create it. My children have expanded me in ways I could never have imagined, revealing the astonishing intelligence of the body, the wisdom of instinct and a capacity for love that seems to have no edges.
Perhaps all of these things are connected. At heart, I want to live as a creator more than a consumer, close to nature, engaged with my senses, willing to get my hands dirty and curious enough to follow that which ignites wonder. I want to make things, grow things, learn things, love people well and remain open to the mystery of being alive.
For me, creation is not separate from living. It is a way of listening, connecting and translating something felt into something tangible. Whether through yoga, art, music, dance, motherhood or simply a walk in nature, I am always searching for that place where instinct takes over, time disappears and something larger seems to move through me.
That is the place I create from.
Architect of the Wild
Architect of the Wild is Cristen's most personal collection to date, and perhaps the clearest expression yet of how she sees a woman.
It was born from the belief that every woman contains both architect and wilderness: the ability to intentionally create a life while remaining deeply connected to instinct, intuition and the parts of herself that refuse to be tamed.
Cristen has moved between the roles of artist, mother, dreamer, entrepreneur, maker and adventurer for much of her life. She has learned that she feels most fully herself when she doesn't choose between those identities, but makes room for all of them. When discipline supports freedom, structure gives form to imagination, and intention exists alongside curiosity and play.
That duality became the visual language of the collection.
Throughout Architect of the Wild, structured Art Deco geometry meets organic flora and fauna. Architectural lines intersect with forms drawn from flowers and the natural world. Rather than asking one force to overpower the other, the collection explores what happens when they dance in harmony.
Each design embodies an intention, a quality we may already possess, be learning to reclaim, or be ready to call forward: courage, presence, transformation, intuition, aligned action, resilience, openness, clarity, wonder.
Together, the pieces tell the evolving story of a woman creating a life of her own design without sacrificing the wild intelligence that makes her extraordinary.
Architect of the Wild is an invitation to choose jewelry for more than how it looks. To recognize yourself in the symbolism of an object. To mark a chapter, claim an intention, remember something you know to be true, or carry a small talisman for the woman you are becoming.
Adornment as expression.
Adornment as intention.
Adornment as a reminder of who you are.
The Art of Becoming.
Cristen René started creating as a girl in a small Texas town, where the bare essentials taught her to find treasure in what was already in front of her. In college, at age 19, she walked through the Renaissance Art Market daily on the way to class. She was intrigued by the makers. As the holidays approached she started thinking about gifts to give. In classic college kid style, she was low on funds, so she began to apprentice with one of the jewelers in the market to create her own pieces. He taught her the basics of hand fabrication. They worked side by side for weeks and became dear friends. Her career in jewelry design sparked there. As people viewed his jewelry they began asking to purchase her pieces that were piled up on the side as gifts for friends and family. It clicked, she had stumbled upon a craft that fed her spirit and her bank account. She never looked back.
Her twenties were a passport. She created the pieces. Sold them. Dropped the money in savings. Booked a ticket somewhere new. Roamed freely around the world for several years. Explored cities she had only read about, but always returned to her roots in Austin. She went home with stones, found objects, and a head full of color. She did it again. And again.
A chapter in Australia ignited her love for holistic living, then another in Athens Georgia deepened her yoga practice, naturopathic studies and understanding of world religion. All the while she was designing, creating and pouring her learnings into the art. The pieces began to carry more than form. They held something deeper for the person who found them.
In 2010 there was a rich East Austin moment. Alongside a few local jewelry designers, Cristen opened a design and retail space on East 11th called René Guest Jewelry. It gave the artists a place to create together and the work a public room for Austin to shop. They hosted beautiful events, worked into the wee hours of the morning in production... danced in between and embraced the connection to the vibrant creative Austin community. With the news of her first pregnancy things began to shift. Several months after the birth, she closed the René Guest Space and moved back into the home studio. Her son came along soon after. The studio learned to live where she lived.
As the kids grew, they needed space. Alongside her partner and Father, Cristen bought and renovated a vintage airstream. It served as her creative space on wheels and quickly expanded into a traveling art collective called Sunstream Goods. It popped up at the most happening spots in Austin, then she and the family took it on a West Coast tour. Sunstream Goods partnered with swanky boutique hotels and hip restaurants for pop-ups. The kids roam-schooled, the family rested in national parks and the art collective shared work from over 35 artists’ work along the way, it was a creative dream on wheels.
After settling in Ojai California, The Visions Collection was born. The energy of that valley shifted the symbolism in her work dramatically. Cristen bought a flower shop and opened the second version of Sunstream Goods in the garden, where she hosted women's events, sold flowers and an incredible array of artisan goods. Life continued to transform her and her family.
In 2021, her family returned to Austin, Texas and there her third child was born, then fourth soon after. Cristen’s focus shifted to mothering her children and creative energy went into her family’s new home. Mini-collections came here and there, a couple holiday open studios. One of a kind pieces. Pottery. A mural. The bass guitar. Drawing. Journaling at first light. She made for the love of it, while the babies grew and her older two moved into adolescence.
This past year begins the story of a new chapter. The cocoon gave space for dreaming like a child, reflecting on the path that led her here. Slowly and intentionally, Architect of the Wild has come to life. This is the first body of work Cristen is releasing as a house. Twenty-five years of practice gathered into one full expression. Wedding the structure and the flow. The disciplined and the free, in the same hand. It is massive, layered and meant to keep creating. She has been moving toward this without quite knowing it the whole time.
Everything she makes is finished by hand, between Los Angeles and Austin, with stones she has chosen one at a time and metals she sources from somewhere honest. A portion of every piece goes to a service partner she selects each year. The collection is part of a larger body of giving.
When a piece finds its person, the hope is that it feels like a homecoming. To something already true inside the wearer. A reminder of who they are and are becoming in that moment.
