From the Ridiculous to the Sublime
After sixteen months of being sequestered at home and only seeing people with masks on their faces, this past month has been a whirlwind of activity. Santa Fe is filled with tourists once again, and our summer festivals are back, even if at a reduced scale.
It never rains, but it pours. In addition to teaching two overlapping workshops on zoom, I also had two overlapping sets of old friends come into town. I was able to have a fabulous dinner at the Coyote Cafe with a friend from high school and a couple of her college friends, and then weaver extraordinaire Laura Viada and her sister, Anne, spent ten days here sightseeing, shopping, and taking in and supporting our first International Folk Art Market in two years (https://folkartmarket.org).
Before getting swept up in the Folk Art Market myself, I spent a day with Laura and Anne, and took them to one of my favorite quirky New Mexico attractions, Tinkertown Museum (https://tinkertown.com). Tinkertown is just about impossible to describe, but it is an entire miniature animated world that was built over several decades by one man, Ross Ward.
While the tickets currently entitle you to a one-hour visit, we were still going strong after three hours and were allowed as much time as we wanted. It goes on and on and on, but a couple favorite sections of mine are the old West town and the three-ring circus.
Ross passed away almost twenty years ago, but his wife, Carla, and friends have kept it going ever since. Ross’ motto, which you can see on signs throughout the museum, was “I did all this while you were watching TV”. Visiting Tinkertown inspired my brother to give up watching TV for a year and take up woodcarving instead.
In former years the International Folk Art Market kicked off on Thursday evening with a parade of 150+ artists from around the world, followed by music and dancing. This was always my favorite night of the year - it felt like world peace through art. Friday evening was a special opening of the market itself, followed by a very busy market weekend.
After having no market last year, this year’s market took a different format. Artists were split into two separate weeks, with a Wednesday evening opening followed by four days of market with limited attendance and timed entries. I worked in various booths during the first week of the market, and then worked several shifts the second week with Nilda Callañaupa in the booth for the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco.
Every one of over a hundred booths was a feast for the eyes and a temptation for the wallet. The Tentmakers of Cairo showed beautiful appliqued hangings -
Several booths from Uzbekistan showed incredibly intricate embroidered pieces -
And a multitude of booths from India showed textiles in done in weaving, embroidery, hand-dyeing and shibori. One was more beautiful than another so it was very difficult to choose just one, but I did manage to bring a lovely woven and embroidered shawl home with me.
But most of my time at the market was spent working in the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco booth. Nilda brought her son, Lino, with her to help in the booth.
They had both been vaccinated prior to coming to the market, as all artists had to be either vaccinated or tested negative in order to come. Everyone was required to wear a mask while in the market (except for photos), and even the rabbits in the garden were wearing masks.
As the sun went down during the opening evening the air also cooled down and I asked Nilda if I could put on a poncho. I was drawn to one in colors that were softer than the typical rich colors from the natural dyes. The weaving was exquisitely fine in handspun alpaca yarn, with contrasting colored patterns embroidered over the warps. As soon as I put it on it felt wonderful and people started telling me that it looked perfect on me. So of course it went home with me that night
Marilyn Murphy, president of both Andean Textile Arts (https://andeantextilearts.org) and Cloth Roads (https://www.clothroads.com) and I collaborated with Eric Mindling and Teresa Robinson, who have a beautiful studio in Santa Fe called Living Threads (https://www.livingthreads.org). We held an opening party on Monday evening and an open studio on Tuesday with displays of the textiles from the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco, along with other beautiful textiles from various parts of the world.
The opening party was a lovely event, with perfect weather, live music by a Peruvian flute player, and delicious food catered by a local Peruvian restaurant.
Between that evening and the open studio the next day, there weren’t any textiles that needed to be shipped back to Peru. The past several weeks have been a great success - for Nilda, for the weavers of Peru, and for all the artisans whose works were represented at the International Folk Art Market. While it was on a smaller scale than in previous years, people came out and supported the artists, and it was a good step back in the direction of what we hope will be more normal again in the future.