Celebrates the humanity of the handmade that empowers communities through monumental earnings.
With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic IFAM is pivoting our market week events to an online platform. Every July, cultures from all corners of the globe are celebrated; folk artists, often marginalized in their own communities, are elevated when the International Folk Art Market | Santa Fe — a mecca for master folk artists and catalyst for social change across continents — unfurls its magic.
Since 2004, the International Folk Art Market | Santa Fe has hosted more than 1000 master folk artists from 100 countries in the world’s largest exhibition and sale of works by master folk artists. Artist earnings have exceeded $31 million and impacted more than one million lives in the communities they represent. The Market offers folk artists a respected spot in the global marketplace to gather together and share their handmade traditions and to create economic, social, and individual empowerment.
Upcoming dates for the International Folk Art Market Santa Fe
- July 6 – July 9, 2023. Tickets go on sale to the General Public May 1, 2023.
Develops leadership through trainings and workshops that equip artists with the skills and tools they need to grow their businesses.
This year, the International Folk Art Market (IFAM) is taking its artist entrepreneurship educational programming to the world virtually. Master folk artists from around the world usually participate in the esteemed Mentor to Market program in Santa Fe in the days preceding the annual July Market. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual event has been canceled for 2020, but IFAM is continuing the training – offering it to the artists in their home countries via a virtual educational platform. The Mentor to Market Programs (M2M) provides business and marketing workshops, hands-on skill building, peer-to-peer learning, and long-term support for folk artists to help them improve their livelihoods and participate more effectively in the global marketplace.
IFAM Passport Folk Art Trips are for adventurous individuals in search of a meaningful ways to discover the world!
IFAM Passport Folk Art Trips are for adventurous individuals in search of meaningful ways to discover the world! Participants have the exclusive opportunity to travel off the beaten path to meet master folk artists in their home countries, where you will engage firsthand in the cultural riches that have inspired centuries of traditions, art, stories, and heritage fighting for survival!
IFAM provides a place for all of us to gather, learn, celebrate our shared humanity, and appreciate what brings us together.
IFAM Folk Art Matters series is a window through which we see communities and individual makers of all sorts, from all cultures, expressing a wide range of identities and beliefs. Folk Art Matters is a way to express our passion for this organization and invite audiences year-round to experience the deep cultural impulses that shape IFAM and inform the creation of folk art from around the world.
Community Membership plays an active role in helping secure IFAM’s mission to connect people to each other and to folk art, to foster international dialogue, preserve and sustain culture, empower artisans, and support IFAM artist-centered programs.
IFAM Community Membership plays an active role by helping us with our mission to connect people to each other and to folk art, to foster international dialogue, preserve and sustain culture, empower artisans, and support IFAM artist-centered programs.
Learn more about Community Membership here.
Encourages dignified livelihoods by connecting artists with wholesale buyers for year-round income.
Postponed until 2022. IFAM Collection at the Dallas Market Center provides an opportunity for master folk artists to participate in a venue that puts them in contact with hundreds of buyers from all over the United States and beyond. Through these wholesale connections, artists can now have year-round income, creating a lasting economic impact in their communities.
Advocates for artists by sharing their inspirational stories in print and film.
Our Book
In 2013, on the occasion of the Market’s 10th Anniversary year, IFAM published its first book, The Work of Art, written by local author Carmella Padilla. The Work of Art invites readers to understand and invest in the living legacy of folk art as a way to participate in the human story of the handmade––and to make a meaningful impact on lives worldwide. This lavishly-illustrated book examines the role of folk artists in the twenty-first century, recognizing their power as creative and socially responsible champions for global change, connection, and cultural sustainability.
Our Film
We also premiered our first documentary film, The Silkies of Madagascar, whose trailer won the prestigious Cine Golden Eagle Award, tells the story of how access to sustainable, global, fair-trade markets preserves an ancient tradition, empowers women, and changes the future for their children. We are currently entering the 22-min. film into film festivals around the country.