Santa Fe International Folk Art Market

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Ique Etacore de Picanerai

Year(s) attended: , , , ,

Organización Cheque Oitedie Cooperative

Bags, Skirts, Flat Panels and a Traditional Blanket Woven by the Ayorea from fibers of the Garbatá Fino plant (a cousin of the pineapple plant)

Ique Etacore de Picanerai

Work by Ique Etacore de Picanerai

Ique is an Ayoreo Indian from the Bolivian savannah, an arid and somewhat desolate landscape.  Ayoreo hunter-gatherers once used net bags to collect native herbs and roots and for hundreds of years these bags have been made of a special grass gathered by the women.  In the last few decades, as the Ayoreos became more settled, the sale of these stunning bags was their only source of cash income.  But soon the grass was overharvested.  Inés Hinojosa Ossio, a Bolivian ethnobotanist and MacArthur Fellow, helped the Ayoreos organize to replant the grass species on their reserves, and in personal gardens, in order to provide a ready resource for their bags.

The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, a non-profit organization, produces the largest international folk art market in the world, and our success led to Santa Fe’s designation as a UNESCO City of Folk Art.