Expert Spokespeople for the 2010 Santa Fe International Folk Art Market

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

CHARLENE CERNY

Charlene Cerny, Executive Director of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.  Photo © Judith Haden

Executive Director of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market &
Director Emeritus of the Museum of International Folk Art

Charlene Cerny is a founder of the Santa Fe Interntional Folk Art Market and is considered a leading expert on folk art. In 2007, she became the Executive Director of the Market.

Cerny spent 15 years as the director of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe.  She served as curator of Latin American Folk Art for eleven years and worked with noted designer Alexander Girard as the curatorial coordinator of the Girard Wing at the museum. Cerny has authored numerous articles and book reviews on international folk art and has served two terms on the Board of the International Council on Museums (ICOM).

The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, says Cerny, “is about so much more than just commerce; it is truly about cultural preservation. This market proves how, in the global economy, we can spend our dollars to make a palpable difference in the lives of people who are struggling to maintain long-held traditions that are often threatened by the realities that people face in developing countries. I believe that our market visitors are as hungry for this experience as they are for the wonderful pieces of folk art they take home with them.”

MARSHA C. BOL, PhD

Dr. Marsha Bol, Director, Museum of International Folk Art.

Director, Museum of International Folk Art

Dr. Bol is the new Director of the Museum of International Folk Art, the largest international folk art museum in the world, holding 135,000 objects from over 100 countries.  She came from the New Mexico Museum of Art, where she served as Director for 7 1/2 years.

Dr. Bol started her museum career at the University of New Mexico’s Maxwell Museum of Anthropology as the Curator of Education, while she was completing her Ph.D. in Native American Art History.  In the 1980s she came to the Museum of International Folk Art as the Curator of Latin American and Native American Folk Art.  She curated the exhibition “Behind the Mask in Mexico,” funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In the 1990s, Dr. Bol went to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to become Associate Curator of Anthropology.  There she headed the major project to plan and install the Alcoa Foundation Hall of American Indians.  She then joined the faculty of the University of Texas at San Antonio, as an Associate Professor.  She worked to develop a graduate project in Museum Studies geared especially for Latino graduate students.

Finally Dr. Bol found her way back to New Mexico, when she became Director of the New Mexico Museum of Art.  While there, she also served as the in-house curator for the exhibits, “Nicholas and Alexandra: At Home with the Last Tsar and His Family,” and “Mexican Modern: Paintings form the National Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.”

DIANA BAIRD N’DIAYE, PhD

Dr. Diana Baird N’Diaye, Smithsonian Institution, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

Smithsonian Institution, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

Diana Baird N’Diaye, Ph.D, is a cultural anthropologist and curator in the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution. Prior to coming to the Smithsonian she was curator-in-chief at the MUSE in New York City and a Program Officer at New York State Council on the Arts. She has also served on the faculty of the Georgetown University. She is a studio fiber artist and jewelry designer whose work is held in the permanent collections of Michigan State University and the collections of several private patrons.

For over 20 years Dr. N’Diaye has traveled extensively, researching and curating Folklife Festival programs and exhibitions featuring traditional craft and expressive culture in the United States and abroad for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and various international venues.  Major programs she has curated/coordinated featuring crafts have included Senegal (1990), Maroon Communities (1992), Bermuda (2001,) Haiti (2005), and the fashion/crafts components of the Silk Road Program (2002), the Mali Program (2003), and the Oman Program (2005). She has written and lectured extensively on cross-cultural craft aesthetics, and served as an expert advisor to UNESCO, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and several state and regional arts councils. Her field research focuses on traditional and contemporary crafts in relation to design arts, and the connections between African and African Diaspora expressive culture.

She is a member of the Smithsonian’s Contemporary Art Curators Forum. Her current research project is “The Will to Adorn: African American Dress and the Aesthetics of Identity.”

JUDITH ESPINAR

Judith Espinar, Founder of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market and Creative Director of the Market

Founder of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market and Creative Director of the Market

An acknowledged international folk art expert, Judith Espinar is a Founder and the Creative Director of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.  In 2008 she received the coveted Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts for her work with the Market.  She was also asked by UNESCO to journey to India last fall to judge its prestigious Award of Excellence for Handicrafts program.

Espinar served in the Peace Corps in Peru after college where her passion for folk art took root. And during a successful career in the fashion industry, she continued to cultivate her personal passion for folk art. After moving to Santa Fe from New York, she made a career change and opened a store specializing in global, traditional ceramics.  Her work with ceramics led her to join the board of Aid to Artisans, a nonprofit organization working with artists to develop products that can compete in international markets. Concerned about the health of potters, she also embarked on a project with Aid to Artisans and UNESCO, to encourage artists to use new lead-free glazes.
(More)

The idea for the International Folk Art Market grew out of a concern for folk artists and a desire to show them that their work is valued.

SUZANNE K. SERIFF, PhD

Dr. Suzanne K. Seriff, Chair of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market Artists’ Selection Committee

Chair of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market Artists’ Selection Committee

Dr. Seriff is the new head of the committee that selects artists for inclusion in the prestigious annual Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.  She is also working with the Museum of International Folk Art for 2010 as the guest curator of their inaugural exhibit --on women’s artisanal cooperatives around the world--in a newly dedicated gallery entiteld “The Gallery of Conscience.” Dr. Seriff divides her time as a curator/consultant for museum projects around the world, and as a senior lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas in Austin. Most recently she served as guest curator and project director of a nationally traveling, NEH-funded exhibit on immigration titled, “Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America Through Galveston Island” which premiered at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, Texas in February of 2009.

Dr. Seriff has curated exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution, the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Texas Memorial Museum at the University of Texas, the Museum of Internatioanl Folk Art, among other institutions, and has a particular expertise in folklore and folk artistic traditions. Among her honors are an esteemed “We The People Award” from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the Forgotten Gateway exhibit. She also has received top awards from the Texas Association of Museums and the American Association of Museums.

Dr. Seriff is no stranger to the folk art world in Santa Fe. From 1991 to 1996, she was the project co-director and guest curator of the award-winning “Recycled, Re-seen: Folk Art from the Global Scrap Heap” exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe.

ERNESTO TORRES

Ernesto Torres, Artist Coordinator for the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market

Artist Coordinator for the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market
(fluent in Spanish)

Mr. Torres, a native of Santa Fe, has extensive experience in arts administration. After receiving his BA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in 1976, he served as chairman of the advisory board for the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission and was a co-founder of New Mexico CultureNet, a non-profit, online gateway with information about arts and culture related events and services throughout the state.

He has also been a program coordinator for the statewide Art in Public Places Program, which funds the placement of public art and creates dialogue between communities and artists, particularly in rural areas and among artists whose first language is not English.