Arts Corner

Arts Corner – Riverside Artswalk – Artist Spotlight: Mindy Griffin

Contributed by Rachael Dzikonski, Executive Director, Riverside Arts Council

It’s hard to believe that we’re already in June, nearly halfway through the year.  Time is flying but the arts community has been busy at work providing so many opportunities to learn, engage with and experience the arts.   2025 marks the City of Riverside’s Year of Arts & Culture and with over 300 events planned for the year, there will be something for everyone!  Within that count are the monthly Riverside Artswalk events which take place every first Thursday of the month.  The Artswalk events offer free access to the galleries and museums that stay open late for a night of community celebration alongside the 120+ artisan vendors on Main Street selling their handmade original artwork.  This month, our Artist Spotlight is a regular exhibitor and member of Riverside Community Arts Association (RCAA) and will be showcasing her work for the month of June.

multidisciplinary artist with a current focus on mixed-media assemblage. She was born and raised in Riverside and proudly calls it home. She’s been creating art since the age of nine and hasn’t stopped since.  Her work brings together found objects, handmade elements, and discarded materials, transforming them into playful, dimensional pieces full of color, character, and story.

Over her 40+ year art career, Mindy’s style has evolved to incorporate a wide range of techniques and materials.  She was classically trained in Southern and Central California and continues to study with private instructors — always eager to learn something new that might spark the next creation.  Her inspiration started young, thanks to her mother and grandmother, and that spirit of encouragement and reinvention remains at the heart of her practice.  She has shown at The Catalyst Gallery in Westminster, The LA Makery and The Hive Gallery in Los Angeles, the Riverside Art Museum, and RCAA Gallery.  She has also shown in international exhibits in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan; Temple Ewell and Dover in the UK; and Ensenada, Mexico—not to mention countless pop-ups across the Inland Empire. Her art is held in public and private collections both in the U.S. and abroad.

At the core of it all, Mindy finds the greatest joy in giving new life to things once thought useless — and in simply making stuff.  She spends as much time as possible creating artwork – some days that may be 10 hours in the studio while other days it’s 20 minutes sketching an idea in her pajamas while the coffee brews.  For Mindy, her art grounds her and keeps her sane. The goal of pursuing her creative endeavors is to simply make stuff, but also to share what she has learned along the way with others.  Mindy appreciates the arts community in Riverside because through her experience participating in the arts community starting in 2001, she has seen that artists are not simply “allowed” to grow and thrive, they are encouraged.

For more information about Mindy and her artwork, visit @mindygriffith_art on IG or mindygriffith.com. For more information on Riverside Artswalk visit www.riversideartswalk.com or @riversideartswalk on IG