Miami artist combines creativity and work ethic to get her hair products in Walmart stores
Peace, love and joy are three themes central to the artwork and life of 2011 Coral Reef High School graduate and South Beach resident Reyna Noriega.
Whether it’s spending time with her Cuban father and Bahamian mother, three siblings or pet schnauzer Pepper, the 2015 Florida International University alumna takes pride in her Miami roots and her family’s Caribbean lineage.
The visual artist and entrepreneur’s latest collaboration with hair care company Goody is emblematic of that. For the project, Reyna designed 60 hair accessories, such as scrunchies, bows and combs, that can be found in about 3,000 Walmart stores locally and nationwide. Her full name is on the packaging making it easy to spot her product collection in stores.
Noriega, 30, took time to discuss her heritage as an Afro-Caribbean Latina, the importance of representation and how she balances her creative skills and routine as an entrepreneur.
WHY WAS IT IMPORTANT FOR YOU AS AN ARTIST TO STAY IN MIAMI?
ENTREPRENEUR AND FORMER ART TEACHER REYNA NORIEGA, A FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY GRADUATE, PARTNERS WITH GOODY TO GAIN TOEHOLD ON WALMART SHELVES.
It speaks to a lot of things I like. I’m a very balanced person and like to be able to observe chaos from a distance. I like my peace and I’m from a Caribbean family, so I’m drawn to the beach and to the tropics. I just feel like Miami has a lot of diversity and different areas with different feelings, and those bring out different sides of my creativity.
I’ve gone to other places and love them. In New York, it’s very fast and makes you feel very ambitious, but I didn’t get the sense of peace that I do from the ocean. A lot of my friends in the art world tend to leave for Los An
my best to help her, to advise, to celebrate her in front of the bosses. That helps ensure women are never underestimated and the confidence these women have in themselves is never undermined.
WHAT WAS YOUR LIFE LIKE IN CUBA AND WHAT DID IT MEAN TO BE PART OF THE PEDRO PAN EXODUS TO AMERICA?
In Cuba, my family lived in Nuevo Vedado, a suburb of the Vedado district that had more modern houses. I’m talking about the 1950s and early 1960s. We had a modest house, which my mother and my aunt bought after saving for many years. They were very happy, and we had parties. We would go on excursions, on picnics. We had a very nice life in Phillips, a bilingual school. Suddenly the revolution came, and in 1961, everything is declared communist. We began to feel the persecution.
I was the first in my family to receive a passport. My mother told me I had to go alone to America and a friend of hers would be there for me.
For me, that was terrible. I was 13 years old, and I cried every day because I was my mother’s little girl and we had never been apart.
I was very lucky because my life changed for only 30 days. At the end of the first month, my mother arrived with my brother, and we were able to get together in a rundown hotel that was in Little Havana. Then my mother rented an apartment in Little Havana.
COULD YOU TAKE ANY MONEY OUT OF CUBA?
No. They even took away my gold earrings in the famous fishbowl, a room surrounded by glass in the Havana airport