Jessica Riehl
Endlessly curious about complexity, change, and process.
Working at the intersection of art, science, and design.
Current Work
Click on the logos below to explore current work.
Collaborative Design | Facilitation | Graphic Recording
Collage | Mail Art | Photography
About
Jessica Riehl believes that curiosity can help us navigate our most pressing challenges. Her work investigates the intersection of complexity, change, and process — exploring how systems work, why good solutions fail to take hold, and what becomes possible when people gain clarity.
Working at the intersection of art, science, and design, Jessica creates visual facilitations, collaborative design processes, and documentary photography that help organizations see themselves in context, navigate complexity, and recognize their own impact. She believes that making things visible — through visual facilitation, photography, and creative practice — is not separate from problem-solving. It is problem-solving.
A U.S. Navy veteran, Jessica holds a Master’s in Environmental Science from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA in Collaborative Design from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Her work has taken her from hydrofracking rallies in the Adirondacks to land preservation work in Patagonia, and from community-based sustainability planning to visual systems work with mission-driven organizations across. She is an Oregon Veteran Business Enterprise (VBE) and Women Business Enterprise (WBE) certified business.
She is the founder of Deep Currents Studio, a visual facilitation and systems thinking consultancy serving nonprofit, government, environmental, and education clients. Delighted by Rainbows is her creative practice; collage, mail art, zines, and the kind of making that fosters her curiosity and creativity.
In her free time, Jessica makes collage, sends mail art to correspondents worldwide, reads, and walks. She grew up on a farm, spent two months measuring glacier mass balance at the Juneau Icefield in Alaska in high school, and has rocks and dried flowers all over the house. She has five typewriters and a vintage stamp perforator. A few of Jessica’s favorite places: Virginia, Oregon, California, and Japan. She lives in Tigard, Oregon with her husband, son, and two cats.
Chapters
The Farm
I grew up on a small sheep farm in Highland County, Virginia. Participating in 4-H and the community was an integral part of life. This is where my love for photography and nature developed. I photographed all through my childhood. Every summer in high school I participated in a science camp. The ultimate adventure was participating in the Juneau Icefield Research Program.
Oregon State University
I attended Oregon State University and graduated with a B.S. in Environmental Science with a minor in Oceanography and Naval Science. The day after graduating, I was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy. This photo was taken during our summer training between my freshman and sophomore year.
Sasebo, Japan and Norfolk, Virginia
My tours included the USS Fort McHenry (LSD-43) homeported in Sasebo, Japan, the USS MtWhitney (LCC-20) homeported in Norfolk, Virginia, and shore duty at COMOPTEVFOR in Norfolk, VA. I spent time in engineering, training, acquisition, and shipboard operations.
Jessica Riehl Photography
After the Navy, I apprenticed as a portrait and wedding photographer. I started my own business, focused on families and active-duty military families.
Environmental Science and Policy
The more I photographed, the more I wanted to use my photography in service to the environment. While in graduate school, I decided to photograph as much of the "learning" as I could. I spent six months exploring the Adirondacks during the winter to understand climate change, traded photography for a CSA with an organic farm, and photographed the New York state hydrofracking rallies.
Collaborative Design
When I graduated with my M.S. in environmental science, I felt like I knew a lot of technical information. What I didn't feel like I knew, was how to get the people in the room to design the right solution. That inquiry led me to pursue education in collaborative design. This is where my love of facilitation and graphic recording was born. My second year, I chose to hand-draw every presentation.
Jessica Riehl Consulting
After graduate school, I built my second business focused on offering collaborative design, facilitation, and graphic recording services. I worked with government, nonprofit, and small businesses in several different sectors.
Deep Currents
Deep Currents is a deepening and reimagining of Jessica Riehl Consulting. It is a narrative that has developed over time, focusing on learning to navigate in the Navy, spending time on the ocean, understanding currents, and visualizing collective work. It feels like the culmination and clearest iteration of my work thus far. My tag line: See Clearly, Move Purposefully, Create Meaningful Impact is what I want to help others experience.
Delighted by Rainbows
Delighted by Rainbows is my personal art practice. Being an explorer is essential to my identity. Exploring different art forms is no exception. The more I create personally, the more I feel my professional work is enriched. Deep Currents and Delighted by Rainbows are always in conversation with each other.
