Meet more than 100 Master Artists
Friday, February 01, 2008
Contact: Clare Hertel
505-670-3090
Meet more than 100 Master Artists selected to sell their work and participate in business-development workshops
Skills learned and money earned will help small towns and villages worldwide
For the fifth consecutive year, more than 100 of the world’s finest folk artists — some famous, others new to the global market — will gather at Milner Plaza in Santa Fe, for the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.
The Market, the largest of its kind in the world, brings together serious art collectors, tourists, delighted children, museum curators, and masterful folk artists from more than 40 different nations, to discuss, enjoy, covet, and, of course, purchase extraordinary, handmade works of art.
This year, for the first time, artists from Rwanda, El Salvador, and Bhutan will join artists from Afghanistan, Botswana, China, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and dozens of other nations, showing work ranging from eye-catching, embroidered textiles to gorgeous, beaded, African animal sculptures.
Cultural Wealth and Creativity
“The Market is the place to see, just by strolling from booth to booth, the cultural wealth and creativity that exist among the folk artists on this planet,” says Judy Espinar, the co-founder of the market and an expert on collecting folk art. “It would take a lifetime of travel to find and buy the exceptional folk art treasures that are readily available at the Market.”
The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market also is the one place this summer where visitors can do good, just by showing up and enjoying themselves. Ninety-three percent of Market-sponsored artists’ sales remain with the artists, many of whom grapple daily with political, social, and environmental challenges in their home countries. Thanks to the training they receive during a free, two-day Training and Building Markets Program (funded by a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation), a large number of the artists at the Market have become self-supporting. Many artists who originally were supported financially by the Market now can finance their own return to the Market. The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market has improved standards of living and supported cultural traditions that might otherwise disappear.
Enjoy a flat-out great time
And it’s done all of this while market-goers enjoy a flat-out great time. For two days in July, Milner Plaza on Museum Hill in Santa Fe will rollick, with strolling mariachi players, Japanese Taiko drummers, and Chinese Dragon Dancers entertaining the tens of thousands of visitors who flock to the Market every year. Vendors will offer exotic foodstuffs from around the world. Children can sample their first Cameroonian meat pie, while their parents learn about beading or tinsmithing or embroidery from the very artists whose works they admire.
“The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market shows that you can have fun and use your dollars to make a palpable difference in the lives of people who are striving to maintain their cultural identities,” says Charlene Cerny, executive director of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.
Many of the international folk artists will be available before and during the Market for interviews. Their stories are at once uplifting and encouraging, proof that beautiful, handmade objects have enduring value, even in our high-tech, hard-edged age.
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The mission of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market is to foster economic and cultural sustainability for folk artists and folk art worldwide and to create intercultural exchange opportunities uniting peoples of the world.
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THE DETAILS
Santa Fe International Folk Art Market
Saturday, July 12th, 2008 from 7:30am – 5pm
Sunday, July 13th, 2008 from 9am – 5pm
Milner Plaza on Museum Hill
(outside the Museum of International Folk Art)
Camino Lejo off Old Santa Fe Trail
Santa Fe, New Mexico