Founder and Chief Creative Officer – Amatoya

Background

Cray Flynn is the founder of Amatoya, a design studio and brand that blends contemporary design with storytelling rooted in Native American heritage. With a career spanning more than thirty years, Flynn has worked across multiple continents in hospitality, commercial, and residential design, building a global perspective that informs the work produced through his studio today.

Flynn studied architecture and interior design in Europe, attending school in Rome and Paris. Early in his career, he worked internationally on large scale hospitality projects, including restaurants, hotels, and casinos. His professional path included time in Singapore working on projects across Asia, Australia, and the Middle East, followed by a decade in Las Vegas designing hospitality environments within one of the most demanding markets in the industry.

Throughout those experiences, Flynn developed a deep understanding of how culture, geography, and local identity influence the spaces people inhabit. That perspective became central to his design philosophy and later shaped the vision behind Amatoya.

Studio

Founded in 2019, Amatoya functions as both a design studio and a product driven brand. The studio works on interior design projects for hospitality clients and private residences while also developing furniture, lighting, and textile collections that express Flynn’s cultural narrative.

A tribal member of the Cherokee Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, Wyandotte, and Mohawk communities, Flynn established Amatoya as a platform for sharing Indigenous stories through contemporary design. Rather than relying on traditional motifs or ceremonial imagery, the studio focuses on subtle references and conceptual storytelling that connect objects to meaning and heritage.

The name Amatoya itself reflects this approach. Derived from the Cherokee language, the word refers to a rain maker or man who makes rain, a historical figure Flynn traces within his ancestry. The brand’s pieces often carry similar narrative layers, combining form, symbolism, and cultural reference.

Alongside interior design work, Flynn is expanding Amatoya through licensing partnerships that bring the brand into new product categories. Upcoming launches include furniture, lighting, and textile collections, as well as hospitality focused amenities developed for hotel environments.

Approach

Flynn’s design approach is grounded in the idea of “sense of place.” After living and working in diverse cultural environments, he believes design should reflect the identity of the people and landscapes connected to a location rather than imposing a universal aesthetic.

This philosophy aligns closely with Indigenous perspectives that emphasize relationships between land, community, and history. By drawing from both global experience and personal heritage, Flynn creates work that blends cultural awareness with contemporary design language.

Beyond his studio work, Flynn is also active in conversations around art, design, and cultural representation. He hosts two video podcasts, Beyond the Art and Beyond the Design, which explore Native American creative industries and the broader design world. These platforms allow Flynn to engage with artists, designers, and cultural leaders while continuing to advocate for greater visibility of Indigenous voices within the design sector.

Through Amatoya and his broader initiatives, Flynn continues to expand a body of work focused not only on aesthetics, but on storytelling, identity, and cultural continuity.

Cray Flynn On Cultural Storytelling, Risk Taking, And Building Amatoya