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 International Folk Art Market, has served as its Executive Director since May 2007 and is an active advocate for folk art preservation and recognition for folk artists.

For more than a decade, Cerny served as Curator of Latin American Folk Art at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe where she was the curatorial director of the Girard Wing. Subsequently appointed Director of the Museum, for sixteen years Cerny oversaw the museum’s exhibition and publication program, including acquisition of the Neutrogena Collection and construction of a new wing at the museum to house and exhibit it.  She is the author/editor of numerous articles and publications on the world’s folk art including Recycled, Re-Seen: Folk Art from the Global Scrap Heap (with Suzanne Seriff, Ph.D.).

“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.”

MARSHA C. BOL, PhD

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

Director, Museum of International Folk Art

Dr. Bol is the 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 to become 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.”

CORINNE KRATZ

Professor of Anthropology and African Studies, Emory University and Research Associate, Museum of International Folk Art .

Professor of Anthropology and African Studies, Emory University and Research Associate, Museum of International Folk Art

Corinne A. Kratz is a professor of anthropology and African studies at Emory University. She authored the award-winning book, The Ones That Are Wanted: Communication and the Politics of Representation in a Photographic Exhibition (University of California Press, 2002), and recently co-edited Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations (Duke University Press, 2006). She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Her research and writing combine interests in performance theory and analysis, the history and politics of representation in visual and verbal media, ritual studies, and the cultural politics of ethnic identity and gender relations. She has worked in eastern Africa with Okiek communities since the mid 1970s.

From 2000-2009 Kratz co-directed the Center for the Study of Public Scholarship with Ivan Karp. During that time, CSPS was the home of Institutions of Public Culture, a collaborative program supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and Emory University. In 2005, she was a Resident Scholar, receiving a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, at the School of Advanced Research in Santa Fe NM. In 2011, Kratz was honored to give the keynote address at the Triennial Conference of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association in Los Angeles, CA.

Kratz is currently working on three major book projects, Looking for the Hairless Cow: Arranging Okiek Marriage, Founding Exchanges: Producing Knowledge through Ethnographic Research and Rhetorics of Value.

Kratz previously served as a Santa Fe International Folk Art Market selection committee member in 2008-2009.

ERNIE SULPIZIO

Ernie Sulpizio, International Interior Designer

International Interior Designer

Ernie Sulpizio has built a successful career and consulting business in the fields of interior design, fashion retail, creative direction and design, product development, brand development, marketing, and store design. A large part of Sulpizio’s focus over the past 25 years has been in global fashion retail, working as a Vice President and Creative Director for some of the world’s most recognizable brands including GAP, Hugo Boss, Club Monaco and ROOTS.

His personal passion for design and architecture has also led to several residential and commercial design projects including store design for Club Monaco in the US, Canada, Hong Kong and throughout China. Interior design projects include residences in New York, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Martha’s Vineyard and Santa Fe.

Sulpizio loves international folk art and donates his time to the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, which supports master folk artists worldwide.

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. In 2010, Espinar spent two weeks in Kyrgyzstan as a participant in the U.S. State Department’s Speakers Program. She consulted with organizers of the Oimo Festival and spoke about craft development in Kyrgyzstan.

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 Artist Selection Committee and Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Seriff is the head of the committee that selects artists for inclusion in the prestigious annual Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. She also worked 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 entitled “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 at 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, February 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, and the Museum of International Folk Art, among other institutions, and has a particular expertise in folklore and folk art traditions. Among her honors are an esteemed “We The People Award” from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the “Forgotten Gateway” exhibit. She has also 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, Director, Artist Relations for the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market

Director, Artist Relations 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.