The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market affords artists and visitors alike all kinds of new experiences, but particularly for some of the artists just making it to Santa Fe can be the adventure of a lifetime.

This is the story of Jamuben Khengabhai Aahir from the Indian women’s co-operative SEWA, and her journey to the US.

When one of the original SEWA grassroots leaders planning to represent the group at the Market had to pull out at the last minute when her daughter tragically died, Jamuben volunteered to be her replacement. The rush was on to get her visa in time, but with the Independence Day holiday closing the US consulate until July 6th, Jamuben wasn’t able to travel until after the rest of her team had already left for New Mexico.

Her journey would involve changing planes in four places and Jamuben, who’s illiterate, would have to be make the whole trip by herself. But she and the rest of the team were determined, Jamuben saying, ‘My sisters and my organization are with me – together with god – If I am confident – others will definitely help me.’

When she reached Newark, a Hindi- and Gujarati-speaking facilitator helped her with her immigration and customs forms. The immigration officer asked her the purpose of her visit, and Jamuben recalls what she told him,: ‘I am going to Santa Fe to demonstrate our skills and explore the possibility of generating livelihood opportunity for my sisters. Our lives depend on our skill.’

Helped by some Gujarati-speaking passengers on her next flight, she reached Houston to discover a thunderstorm had cancelled the flight to Albuquerque. Jamuben asked someone to call her contacts in Santa Fe to tell them of the delay but she couldn’t get through.

With luck she met an artist from Malaysia who was also due to be traveling to the Folk Art Market on the same cancelled plane. They waited together and eventually their alternate flight arrived in Albuquerque well after midnight, where they were met by Market volunteers. Jamuben recalls, ‘As we came out and were walking a lady came running towards us and she hugged me and called my name “JAMU”¦” “JAMU”¦”’

They all made it to the hotel in Santa Fe at 3am, and Jamuben was keen to see the rest of her SEWA group, ‘Finally when I saw them – I hugged and tears rolled out I did make it – finally”¦”¦”¦. I had not even traveled to Mumbai or Delhi all alone, and I took the risk of traveling to US all by myself, ‘ she says.

‘But I had deep faith in my heart that I am going to do work of my sisters and so the nature will be with me. Someone, somewhere will always come forward to help me, guide me and facilitate and I will reach the destination.’

Amina Yabis was a typical Moroccan housewife and mother of four boys, but with the support of her school teacher husband and family, she decided to help women play a larger part in the economic and political life of her community in the Sefrou region of Morocco.

In 2000, she and nine motivated women formed the Cherry Buttons Cooperative to take ownership of their craft of making hand-knotted buttons. 

Since then, the cooperative has grown to approximately 40 members with an outreach of over 200 families producing buttons and other products such as scarves, rugs and slippers.

The co-operative’s community outreach activities are coordinated through its sister non-profit organization, the Golden Buttons Association which has a membership of approximately 250 women from Sefrou, Bhalil, El Menzel, and other neighboring villages.

The association organizes literacy classes for women, and offers other training in running a business, weaving and using natural dyes.

Since 2005, the association has also collaborated with the Peace Corps in forming an annual young girls’ empowerment camp for the Middle Atlas region called Girls Leading Our World, or GLOW.

The camp encourages young girls to think about a future where they will be the next doctors, lawyers, politicians, star athletes, and business owners of Morocco. 

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The days of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market can fly by, for volunteers, artists and staff alike, and it’s only after things have returned to “˜normal’ that we can reflect on the experience of those few days in July.

Here are extracts from messages artists and organizers sent us when they got back to Africa which show how much the 2010 Market meant to them.

First, notes from Nozipho Zulu, Development Officer at The African Art Centre in Durban, South Africa, who travelled to New Mexico with several South African artists:

“It was on our return to South Africa that we realised the extent to which the market was an extraordinary experience. We have never sold that amount of stock in three days; the ceramic pots, the wire baskets, embroidered textiles. . . We always had cheerful customers in our booths, never did we encounter an unfriendly customer, they were all smiling.

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Hello Market Supporters,

Wow! There is so much to say and to tell you now that the 2010 Market is over, but I thought I should at least share some highlights with you.

This year’s Market saw some wonderful new developments and great success “by the numbers” (these are preliminary figures and subject to change):

• Collectively, artist sales totaled over $2 million, a 7% increase over last year
• Attendance is estimated at nearly 25,000, a increase of 6.1%

This year, for the first time, we inaugurated “International Folk Arts Week” in collaboration with the Museum of International Folk Art and many businesses around town.

The week kicked-off with a July 4th opening of a new exhibition Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives that Transform Communities.  An exciting panel discussion that day gave voice to women cooperative leaders from places a diverse as Kenya, India and Peru.

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The artists have begun to arrive. . .

From Swaziland, Peru, the Sultanate of Oman, Kenya, Nepal, and more.

Artists from across the globe are on their way to the Folk Art Market. 

Don’t miss this unique experience!

Tickets for the Market are still available for purchase.

We hope to see you there, July 9-11! 

With the Market fast approaching, we’d like to get you in the mood with some great photographs from previous years’ Market.

Visitors from the last two years have been sharing their photographs on our Flickr Group, and there are some lovely images there. You can visit the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market’s Flickr Group here.

And of course, if you’re coming this year, we’d love to see your photographs added to the Group too.

Just a quick extra note: to illustrate this blog post we used one of the images from the pool, but got the photographer’s additional permission to post the photograph on this site (which wasn’t hard because it was me). We won’t use any images in the pool without express permission from the photographer. That said, some of the previous images have been so good that we have arranged with the photographer concerned to use them to promote the Market. So there’s a chance you’ll see an image of yours on the side of a bus, if that’s something you’d like.

- David Moore (I look after the Market’s website and contribute some of my photography, too).

UNESCO has been involved with the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market since its inaugural year in 2004 and was the first international agency to recognize the importance of the Market and its impact on the preservation and continuation of traditional arts.  This year, UNESCO’s Division of Cultural Expressions and Creative Industries is again providing funding for the Market to promote the Award of Excellence program at the 2010 Market.

The Award of Excellence for Handicrafts Program was established to encourage craft-workers to use traditional skills and materials to ensure the perpetuation of traditional knowledge and preserve cultural diversity, while promoting innovations to keep the products relevant and competitive.

By setting quality standards for handicrafts and raising international awareness, the Award program aims to strengthen the interest for these products, and helps place culture at the core of development. Capacity-building and promotional activities help artisans sustain a more viable livelihood and long-term employment.

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We’re delighted to announce that the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market is featured in the current (July 2010) issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.

Highlighting the work of seven women artisan groups, the article shows the beauty of their work, and outlines the beneficial impact these groups have on their communities.

Featuring great photographs and a compelling quote from Market Executive Director Charlene Cerny, the coverage is sure to raise awareness of the Market and the featured artisans.

You can read the O Magazine article here.

To launch their StreetSide 2010 exhibit, Santa Fe’s Patina Gallery is holding an opening reception that’s also a fundraiser for the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.

The reception, one of the International Folk Arts Week events, will begin at 5pm on Thursday July 8th, to coincide with the Market’s opening event on the Plaza.

The StreetSide exhibit features travel-themed folk art from the collections of Peggy Gaustad and Stuart Ashman, Barbara and John Berkenfield, Julie Payne and Steve Luckman, and Maureen Russell. All the collectors will be attending the reception.

In addition, a percentage of all gallery sales at Patina from June 1 through July 30 will be donated to the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market (be sure to mention the Market when you purchase).

Or you can support the Market by making an online purchase before August 1.

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Maria Rengane is from the Tsonga tribe in Winterveldt, South Africa, and she works in the Mapula (Mother of Rain) Embroidery Project women’s cooperative.  The work of her cooperative will be featured in the Museum’s exhibition, Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives That Transform Communities.

The cooperative started when Maria began teaching women to do embroidery work that they could sell and make some money.  She now has a group of 14 women with whom she works, and they receive no outside assistance.

Maria learned embroidery from her mother.  With fine technical and visual artistry, Maria embroiders cloths that express village life and women’s personal experiences.

Her work in the community was inspired by Nkosi Johnson, a South African boy who died in 2001 of AIDS at age 12.  He spoke strongly about the stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS and addressed the International AIDS Conference in Durban in 2000.

Many people are suffering and dying from AIDS in Maria’s community, and Maria would like to see more efforts from those in power to fight the problem by providing cheaper medicine for the poor.

Asked if she would ever stop doing her embroidery work, Maria says, ‘Never! This is how I express myself. If I am sad I put it in my embroideries, if I am happy I put it in my embroideries.’

‘I would also like to spend my life helping communities to do things for themselves – that is how you build a strong successful nation’.

You can learn more about Maria here, and look forward to seeing her work at this year’s Market.

A two-day colloquium (open only to invited Market artists involved with cooperatives) will take place in the week before the Market.

Entitled ‘Women’s Cooperatives for Economic and Social Empowerment,’ over 35 cooperatives from 23 countries will be taking part.  This international gathering will serve as a forum for participants to share their experiences about issues such as preservation of cultural traditions in the face of the global marketplace, tackling social issues, and expanding market access for artisan products to work towards economic sustainability. 

Some presentations will take place on a narrated stage, with these dynamic cooperative women leaders as the presenters, in order for more peer-to-peer knowledge exchange to take place.

As part of the event, a number of community-based, women’s arts organizations from New Mexico including members from the Ramah Navajo Weavers Association, Tierra Wools, and Española Valley Fiber Arts Center will share their experiences and artwork in this cross-cultural exchange.

Rebecca Lolosoli, from the Umoja Uaso Women’s Group in Kenya (shown right) says, “My goal is to learn as much as possible about all these topics and how we all share similar problems and difficulties. I want to learn about how other women’s cooperatives function and how they market their work internationally.’

‘I will share the story of how our group has managed to survive much abuse, sabotage and many physical dangers in order to stay together as a group in a culture that is patriarchal and in which women have few rights.”

The colloquium is funded in part by UNESCO’s Division of Cultural Expressions and Creative Industries.

To coincide with this year’s Folk Art Market, there’s a range of folk art related events taking place the week of the Market, July 4-11.  Presented by the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market and the Museum of International Folk Art, International Folk Arts Week will give people more opportunities to learn about international folk arts and interact with the artists.  It also invites participation by the Santa Fe art community.

Kakuben Jivan Ranmal, embroiderer of SEWA Trade Facilitation Center, photo courtesy of SEWA

The week kicks off with the inaugural exhibition in the Gallery of Conscience at the Museum of International Folk Art spotlighting women’s cooperatives participating in the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.

The Gallery of Conscience is a space at the Museum devoted to the examination of issues that threaten the survival of the traditional arts.

Marsha Bol, Director of the Museum of International Folk Art says, “We intend to address such issues as the ecological implications of the acquisition of materials used in producing folk arts, the impact of political conflict and war on folk arts, and various economic and social issues that threaten to disrupt folk arts.  We will also exhibit examples of successful solutions to such circumstances.”

The inaugural exhibition is titled Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives That Transform Communities, guest curated by Suzanne K. Seriff, Ph.D., Chair of the Folk Art Market’s Artist Selection Committee.

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Kakuben Jivan Ranmal, an embroidery artist from the town of Patan, India, will be making her first appearance at the Market this year.

Together with two other embroidery artisans from India, she will be representing the group known as SEWA Trade Facilitation Center (STFC) – an arm of SEWA – the Self Employed Women’s Association.

The Center was formed in 2003 by more than 15,000 women artisans from the desert region of Gujarat, in western India.  STFC aims to empower poor women financially, helping them to create livelihoods for themselves and their families by selling their traditional embroidery.

The vision of STFC is to ensure that craftswomen in the informal sector have socio-economic security and full employment, by building a grassroots’ business enterprise of the artisans.

Before joining the STFC, Ms. Ranmal had been forced to leave her nine-month-old child with relatives while she searched for low-paying, menial jobs far from home. Now she and the other artisans of the STFC work from their homes and are shareholders (not just suppliers) in the organization.

Currently STFC has 3500 artisan shareholders in 80 villages across 3 Districts in Gujarat.

Reema Nanavaty, Director of Economic and Rural Development for SEWA says,

“It is indeed a great opportunity and an honour to be a part of the International Folk Market 2010. As the world at large is confronting two major crises (1) the economic crises and (2) the climate crises, the International Folk Market and SEWA Trade Facilitation Centre are exploring ways to access newer markets, yet preserving the rich cultural heritage, the traditional skills, and the local environment.”

You can learn more about SEWA here: http://sewa.org/ .  Meet Kakuben and see the work of the many artist of the Self Employed Women’s Association at the Market in July

Prestigious Cuban band to play their first US shows at the Market, and Cuban art to be sold at the market for the first time

TradiSon, a respected five-piece band from Cuba will play their first US shows at the 2010 Folk Art Market, which will also for the first time offer work by Cuban artists for sale.

Both developments came from a visit to Cuba last December by a Folk Art Market team that comprised the Market’s Creative Director Judith Espinar, Market Executive Director Charlene Cerny and Santa Fe potter (and Market Board Member) Peggy Gaustad. Invited by the Cuban Ministry of Culture, who, along with the World Craft’s Council and UNESCO, were presenting an international crafts market known as FIART, the Market team explained the Market’s mission and were introduced to Cuban musicians and artists.

TradiSon is the house band at the La Bodeguita del Medio restaurant in Havana, famous for its mojitos and its storied clientele, including Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Neruda.

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The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market would be nothing without the artists who come from all over the world, and the Market employees and handful of volunteers who work year-round to put it all together. But when it comes to the weekend in July itself, it’s the dedicated group of over 1500 volunteers who really shine.

Volunteers range in ages from 17 – 80 (and this year there’s a new program for younger volunteers aged 14-16), and they perform a wide range of tasks from meeting artists at the airport, working as a cashier or an artist’s assistant, helping with bus transportation or recycling or decorating the site. You can learn more about the volunteer opportunities here: Volunteer Opportunities.

So why do people do it? Prudy Krieger, the Chair of Volunteers says, “Volunteering is a great deal of fun, the atmosphere is very upbeat, and it’s a great cause.”

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We’re delighted to announce a special event for the Market: An Evening with Nicholas Kristof, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.

Nicholas Kristof speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. (Image used under a Creative Commons License: Copyright by World Economic Forum
swiss-image.ch/Photo by Monika Flueckiger.)

A seasoned journalist, Kristof has traveled extensively throughout China, Africa, India, and South Asia. He will share poignant tales of women’s struggles and triumphs in the face of poverty and discrimination.

This groundbreaking event will be presented at The Lensic Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, July 7th at 7:30 pm. The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, World Women Work, and the Museum of International Folk Art are presenting this evening as a part of International Folk Arts Week in conjunction with a new exhibition opening at the Museum, Empowering Women:  Artisan Cooperatives that Transform Communities. This event is made possible through a Lensic Community Sponsorship.

Tickets will go on sale April 1 and range from $15 to $125 (which includes preferred seating, a private reception at Coyote Cantina with Kristof, and a signed copy of his book). Buy tickets here.

More information on International Folk Arts Week will be coming in future blog posts.

Join the Market Team for a six-day adventure in November, visiting the master potters of Santa Cruz and Tonala, the Ceramic Museum in Tlaquepaque, Guadalajara, and the colorful San Juan Market.  The highlights of the trip include a full day at Feria Maestros del Arte, dinner with select artists, and a private visit to a collector’s home.

Come along for all the fun – great shopping, music, wonderful food, and traveling with your Folk Art friends.

The trip runs from November 8 – 13, 2010 and the cost is $1,875 Per Person, based on Double Occupancy

The full itinerary is available here.

To sign up contact Jean Zunkel, BJ Adventures, Inc. at (505) 466-2289.