International Folk Art Market Honors Museum Partners
Santa Fe, New Mexico—When the 16 th Annual Santa Fe International Folk Art Market takes the stage on Museum Hill July 12–14, five outstanding local cultural institutions that preserve and promote folk art traditions as part of their missions will have a place of honor alongside the more than 150 international artists from 49 countries who will gather at the Market this year.
As Museum Hill neighbors to the Market and partners in the larger cultural community, theseinstitutions will be celebrated for helping to create a culture that values and celebrates folk artists and markets in New Mexico. Among them is the Museum of International Folk Art, a key Market partner since the event’s inception in 2004. Founded in 1953, the museum is home to the world’s largest international folk art collection, including works by many Market artists and their families.
Other honorees include the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian and the School for Advanced Research.
Each of these institutions has deep roots in the cultural community and a history of supporting folk artists from the United States through their exhibitions and programs. The Market, which has not previously represented the American tradition of folk art at its annual event, will honor the distinctive legacies of its cultural partners by featuring a group of U.S. artists representing these institutions at the 2019 Market.
Curators from each institution have been invited to select one artist to show and sell their work at the three-day Market. These artists will share a booth where each of their handmade traditions will be spotlighted. The artists also will be invited to take part in pre-Market business training events and all other Market festivities.
Together, these guest artists and the cultural institutions they represent will for the first time provide Market-goers an American experience of the diversity of folk art traditions in the United States—from the celebrated ceramics of the American South, to the American Indian traditions of Navajo pottery, Pueblo silverwork and Apache fiddle making, to the Hispanic religious arts of the American Southwest.
“This sampling of folk art from the U.S., as demonstrated through the work of our five special guest artists, is sure to entice and educate our Market visitors this year with new perspectives on folk art,” says International Folk Art Market CEO Stuart Ashman. “This is our way to highlight our partnerships with other dynamic cultural institutions in Santa Fe and engage them more deeply in our global Market community.”
A Spirit of Collaboration
The Market’s spirit of collaboration in celebration of shared cultural values is being embraced by the community institutions invited to participate in the 2019 Market.
“The Wheelwright Museum welcomes IFAM’s new collaboration with neighboring organizations on Museum Hill,” says Jonathan Batkin, director of the Wheelwright Museum, which since 1937 has presented the living traditions and creative expressions of Native American peoples. “By inviting an organization such as the Wheelwright to offer a glimpse into its own vision of the arts, and specifically folk arts, IFAM is broadening awareness of Santa Fe’s cultural community among its attendees.”
Michael Brown, president of the School for Advanced Research, founded in 1907 to support research in anthropology and promote Native American arts, adds, “SAR is proud to collaborate with the International Folk Art Market. Alliances such as this help to sustain and enhance Santa Fe’s reputation as one of the nation’s liveliest creative zones and marketplace for the visual arts, bringing together influences as historically deep as the Ancestral Pueblos and as distant as the savannas of Africa.”
Like the international folk artists who comprise the global face of the Market, the five U.S. guest artists will reflect the multicultural influences, deep-seated traditions, and social challenges and opportunities that define the American folk art experience.
“This partnership provides an opportunity to advance community knowledge about Native people and foster greater understanding of their unique art, cultures, languages and histories,” says Della Warrior, director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, which since 1987 has presented tribal traditions and contemporary lives of Native American peoples in the Southwest. “It creates greater awareness that Native art is created by America’s indigenous peoples and that indigenous peoples face similar kinds of barriers when trying to market and promote their work.”
Worlds Apart, Close to Home
The unique history and diversity of the Market’s U.S. guest artists, as expressed through the artistic traditions that each represents, will undoubtedly enhance the experience of Market- goers in understanding folk art as a window into the vitality and creativity of cultures both worlds apart and close to home.
The following five folk artists will represent IFAM’s five cultural partners at the 2019 Market:
MUSEUM OF INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART: Billy Ray Hussey, Ceramics, North Carolina
Billy Ray Hussey was born and raised in a region of North Carolina that nurtured many of the American South’s greatest master potters. Hussey eventually established himself as a visionary among them, creating a unique repertoire of handcrafted earthenware animals and other whimsical versions of traditional forms. While interpreting historical prototypes and utilizing traditional technology and materials, Hussey seeks inspiration in tradition while advancing the South’s vernacular pottery legacy into new areas of expression.
“Ceramic master artist Billy Ray Hussey’s face jugs and other traditional forms will bring the vitality of southern U.S. folk ceramics to the Folk Art Market,” says Museum of International Folk Art Director Khristaan Villela.
MUSEUM OF INDIAN ARTS AND CULTURE: Mary Tafoya, Jewelry, Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico
Mary Tafoya grew up in Santo Domingo Pueblo, where she learned the traditions of Santo Domingo jewelry by helping her parents string and design traditional jewelry. Over time, her jewelry evolved from traditional Santo Domingo turquoise heishi and “Depression Era” work to a contemporary multicolored mosaic style. Using natural stones, shells and turquoise, Tafoya creates hand-cut, free- form inlay designs. No two pieces are alike, due to Tafoya’s intricate and angular inlay of stones, each chosen for their singular shapes and varied hues. “Mary Tafoya’s work emanates from her cultural knowledge as a Santo Domingo (Kewa) person,” says Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Director Della Warrior. “Her work represents the traditions and culture of her Pueblo in a very unique style. Her art is a stellar representation of the MIAC art collection, and her participation in the IFAM benefits MIAC and its purpose, which is to foster a greater understanding and appreciation of the indigenous peoples of the greater Southwest.”
MUSEUM OF SPANISH COLONIAL ART: Marie Romero Cash, Woodcarving, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Marie Romero Cash was born and raised in Santa Fe as the daughter of the eminent tinsmiths Emilio and Senaida Romero. As a longtime santera (saint maker), Romero Cash has distinguished herself as a contemporary master of the traditional Hispanic art of carving and painting saints and other religious subject matter. Her colorful hand-carved works are known for melding her deep knowledge of the history of saint making with a whimsical sense of experimentation. Romero Cash’s award-winning works are held in private collections and churches in New Mexico and far beyond. She has also written several books on the history of churches, religious art and Hispanic culture in New Mexico.
WHEELWRIGHT MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN: Elizabeth Manygoats, Pottery, Navajo, Arizona
One of ten children of Betty Manygoats, a well-known Navajo folk artist and potter, Elizabeth Manygoats is known for developing her own unique pottery style of painted pictorial works depicting scenes from daily life on the Navajo reservation. From figures of Navajo women, to portrayals of horses, sheep, dogs and chickens, to scenes from history and everyday roadside sights, Manygoats’ three-dimensional figures are lively and realistically painted. While she continues to utilize traditional techniques, she is known for continually pushing the envelope by experimenting with new shapes and subject matter. Her innovative clay tiles, for example, resemble pictorial postcards, demonstrating her refined technical expertise and sense of composition.
“Potter Elizabeth Manygoats has a playful style that is rooted in generations of Navajo folk arts,” says Wheelwright Museum Director Jonathan Batkin. “Her depictions of the Navajo people and their land, homesteads, livestock and other subjects are endearing but wonderfully made using traditional methods and materials. We have enjoyed and followed her work for years, and we know that IFAM’s audience will find it irresistible.”
SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH: Anthony Belvado, Fiddle Maker. San Carlos Apache, San Carlos, Arizona
Anthony Belvado is a third-generation Apache fiddle maker who learned his craft from his grandfather. Little is known about this unusual string instrument, called tsíí’ edo’a’tl in Apache, which Belvado creates from traditional materials, including agave, mesquite wood and roots, pine pitch, acacia branch and horsehair. As an artist and lecturer, Belvado has worked to preserve and promote this unique art form as well as other traditional Apache musical instruments. In 2014, he served as the Ronald and Susan Dubin Native Artist Fellow at the School for Advanced Research.
“Anthony Belvado has played a pivotal role in reviving the craft of Apache violin-making,” says Michael Brown, president of the School for Advanced Research. “Using traditional materials and bringing his own whimsical use of color to his instruments, he honors tradition and surpasses it in delightful ways.”
For more information, photos or to set up interviews, contact Clare Hertel at 505-474-6783 or clare@clarehertelcommunications.com .