Santa Fe International Folk Art Market

Reflections from Culture Day: Arts, Culture, and Economic Development

From left to right:  JoAnn Balzer, Board Member; Charlene Cerny, Co-Founder and Executive Director; Charmay Allred, Co-Founder and Board Member; Senator Nancy Rodriguez; Carol Robertson Lopez, Board Member; Judy Espinar, Co-Founder and Creative Director

Each year during the New Mexico legislative session, one day is designated Culture Day: an opportunity to celebrate the rich cultural resources we have throughout the state. This year, it was February 15th, and the Rotunda of the State capitol was full of engaging exhibits from each of the museums, state monuments, libraries, arts and preservation programs. 

As part of Culture Day, Senator Nancy Rodriguez read a proclamation on the Senate Floor honoring the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. 

Other senators including Dede Feldman, Peter Wirth, Carlos Cisneros, Richard Martinez, and Mary Jane Garcia all spoke about the value of the Folk Art Market to our state – not only the cultural diversity and global perspective it brings, but the value of the tourist dollars as well.

The Folk Art Market is featured as one of the recommended events to attend in an in-depth article about Santa Fe in Sunday’s New York Times travel section.

The piece by Henry Shukman looks at the rich artistic and cultural resources in the city, and the combination of preservation and re-invention that keeps Santa Fe vibrant.

The Folk Art Market is described as “an outstanding market in a city of markets”.

> You can read the full story here.

Quilters from the Lila Handicrafts cooperative living in a small village in the Sindh province of Pakistan have recently launched the Santa Fe Desert School in a single room in their village using their earnings from the Market. 

Children of the Lila Handicrafts artisans attending their school

The school in the village of Kaloi in the Tharparker District was named to commemorate their connection to the Folk Art Market - Lila Handicrafts have attended the Market every year since it started in 2004.

Plans are underway to build a more permanent school based on the unique architecture of Santa Fe that will serve as a permanent building for the 24 children of the artisans there.

The cooperative previously used funds earned at the Market to send the artisans’ children to the Brightening Stars School, a private school in a neighboring town.

All of the Market Artists from Haiti Survived the Earthquake.

Serge Jolimeau, Georges Valris, Michee Ramil Remy, Pierre Edgar Satyr and Marie Bernard Pascale Faublas (Marie will be new to the 2010 Folk Art Market) are alive and uninjured according to Market contacts on the ground in Haiti. However, their personal and community losses have been substantial. Their homes have been destroyed or damaged severely, their livelihoods disrupted. Georges’s sister lost her three children. Pierre’s house collapsed.

The Market will continue to reach out to the artists, their families and communities so that we remain connected and informed as their situation unfolds.

Thanks to the generosity of Market supporters, the Market Artist Relief Fund has grown to over $14,000. These generous donations will help us help them directly and according to the needs they themselves identify.

If you would like to make an online contribution to the Artist Relief Fund, please use the button displayed here.

Or, call us at 505-476-1196.

Let us all hold Haiti in our hearts and prayers.

Please, Give to Relief Efforts

The earthquake in Haiti has affected us all deeply.  Through the Market, so many have developed meaningful and lasting friendships with artists from Haiti and across the globe.  As you know, Haiti--the poorest country in our hemisphere--is now faced with a devastating crisis of unimaginable proportions.

We encourage all of our Market supporters to respond to this crisis by donating to one of the many aid organizations in Haiti who are providing relief efforts including immediate care and medical services in Haiti.  Here are links to organizations with long histories of working in Haiti on the ground:

• American Red Cross International Response Fund
• Mercy Corps Haiti Earthquake Fund
• Partners in Health
• UNICEF
• UN World Food Programme
• CHF International

What we know so far

It has been difficult to obtain reports on the status of our friends in Haiti, despite numerous and ongoing attempts to do so.  Thanks to Aid to Artisans, we were happy to learn today that “Noailles-artisans around Serge Jolimeau suffered no personal loss.” Still no word on Serge himself, though. 

We are particularly concerned about our friends in Jacmel, Pierre Edgard Satyr, Marie Bernard Pascale Faublas and the other papier-mache artists in Association Pour Le Developpement de l’Artisanat du Sud’est.  We understand that Jacmel has sustained considerable damage.

Inquiries are out through our partners at CHF International and the Clinton Global Initiative and we will keep you updated as we find out more about the well being of the other artists who are part of the Market family.

The Market Response

In response to inquiries from several donors, and a lead gift from the Domanica Foundation, the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market has now established an Artist Relief Fund. This fund will provide needed support for Haitian artists who were chosen to participate in the 2010 Folk Art Market. In the future this permanent fund will assist Market artists who face other unforeseen crises or special circumstances of need. 

If you would like to make an online contribution to the Artist Relief Fund, please use the button displayed here.

Or, call us at 505-476-1196.

Let us all hold Haiti in our hearts and prayers.

George Valris

No matter where in the world they occur, natural disasters and the human tragedies that ensue, affect us all.

But here at the Market, where staff and volunteers alike develop friendships with many of the artists who come to the Market each year, our concern for those we know in Haiti is very personal. 

Serge Jolimeau

Today Ernesto emailed all available contacts to seek information on the well-being of such friends as George Valris (sequin flag maker), Serge Jolimeau and Michee Ramil Remy (recycled metal sculptors), and Pierre Edgard Satyr and the other cooperative members in Jacmel (papier-mache makers), among others. 

If any of you has information about their status, please let us know. 

Many of us want to help.  Right now, what is needed most are financial contributions and volunteer medical help.

Michee Ramil Remy

I just made a gift to Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health. PIH runs health programs in rural Haiti and their hospital, located just two hours outside of Port-au-Prince, was not affected by the quake. 

They are a great organization with a long commitment to Haiti. See: www.pih.org.

Kelly Waller sent her colleagues an email suggesting OXFAM. 

Pierre Edgard Satyr

We are also working with our partners at CHF International to find out more about our Market artists in Haiti.

Finally, here is a list of charities suggested by the Clinton Foundation.

Gifts of any size will make a difference.

As this tragedy unfolds, let us all keep Haiti in our thoughts and prayers.

Charlene Cerny
Executive Director

Manjula Devi Maithil Bahun was 13 years old when she got married in her small village in southern Nepal. According to social norms, she was not allowed to leave her home nor talk with her husband in front of others. Now, 27 years later, the beautiful paintings she once only did on her floor and walls for traditional ceremonies, have helped her be the primary earner in her household with her husband supportive of her role.

Manjula is a leader in the Janakpur Development Center, a self-governed NGO that employs 41 women who are part of the Women Empowerment Through Tradition movement. While women continue to paint the floors and walls of their homes for ceremonies, they also make wall paintings on public buildings that speak to social issues. Themes are often related to health, as well as to the “peace building process.” At the Center, women of all castes socialize and share information.

I had an opportunity to be a part of the Folk Art Market that was organized at Santa Fe from 11-12, July 2009. It was an amazing experience. More than 125 artists from 46 countries gathered at one place, exhibiting their unique talent steeped in the rich traditions and culture of their lands. On the one hand there were works of embroidery, textile work of Afghanistan and block printing and woven works from India, while on the other hand there were woodworks, Pakistani truck painting, and Ecuadorian beadwork, to name just a few.

The Market has been providing a wonderful platform for the folk artists around the world to show their beautiful works to the people, share their experience and skills with visitors and artists from other parts of the world and thus enrich others and be enriched in the process. The Market has become a global confluence of the folk artists and the people from various ethnicities, communities, and nationalities. 

More than 23,000 people visited the Market this year. There was huge interest in the folk art for sale among the visitors which translated into large sales for almost all the artists. Items from Kandahar, Afghanistan in traditional needle embroidery called Khamak sold like hotcakes.  On average each artist was able to sell goods worth over $15,000 within two days– a great incentive for artists particularly from the developing and under-developed world. Total sales for the weekend reached $1.95 million!

Twavurire Marothe, Artist Attending the Artist Training Program

Creating art and running a business aren’t necessarily skills that go together. Sometimes they do, but often they don’t.

Folk artists come to the Market with a wide range of business skills. Some artists are members of well-established cooperatives that leverage individual members’ skills to present work at an international level, provide technical training and even offer health benefits. Other artists have developed highly productive businesses and have a keen understanding of how and where to place and sell their art. They might work with a non-profit, an art dealer, an interested individual or on their own. Still other artists are just learning how they can make a sustainable living from their work.