KEITH RECKER
Board of Directors, International Folk Art Market Keith Recker serves on the Board of Directors of the International Folk Art Market. Recker is the founder and Editor of Hand/Eye magazine, an online endeavor discussing the intersections between art, craft, design, philanthropy, and enlightened consumption. Hand/Eye profiles forward-looking creators, faraway cultures, ancient craft traditions, and cutting-edge design innovation. Hand/Eye’s unique mix seeks to strengthen our species’s design DNA—which has been weakened recently by a pattern of global commerce that frequently results in visual and cultural uniformity. Creativity, ancient or modern, is the answer to the challenges of the 21st century, and Hand/Eye is on the lookout for hopeful solutions.
Prior to founding Hand/Eye, Recker worked as a home furnishings executive, a nonprofit leader, and a color and branding consultant. He has had the privilege of working with established entities in both the commercial and nonprofit worlds, including CARE International, Gump’s San Francisco, Saks Fifth Avenue, Aid to Artisans, and Bloomingdale’s, and has learned from and contributed to each organization. His tenures as Vice President of Direct Response Home Furnishings at Gump’s San Francisco and Bloomingdale’s, and as Director of Home Furnishings at Saks Fifth Avenue, have given him a deep knowledge of nearly every category in the decorative home world. His work in product development and marketing has created lasting and cordial relationships across the industry.
During a two-year tenure as Director of Product Development at Granet and Associates, Recker helped create relationships between creative brands and manufacturers and marketers serving the retail sector and the design trade. Clients included Clodagh, Jamie Drake, John Barman, Richard Mishaan, Campion Platt, Suzanne Kasler, Pantone, and John Varvatos. Recker continues to work with Pantone and London-based WGSN on color matters, and with U.S. and international artisan associations on trends and product development.
MARSHA C. BOL, PhD
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 more than 100 countries. She came from the New Mexico Museum of Art, where she served as Director for seven and a half 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 to 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.
JUDITH ESPINAR
Founder of the International Folk Art Market An acknowledged international folk art expert, Judith Espinar is a founder of the International Folk Art Market. Espinar has traveled all over the world collecting master folk art. In 2008 she received the coveted Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts for her work with the Market. She has also journeyed to India to judge the prestigious UNESCO Award of Excellence for Handicrafts program. After college, Espinar served in the Peace Corps in Peru, 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.
CARMELLA PADILLA
Author of The Work of Art: Folk Artists in the 21st Century Carmella Padilla is the author of The Work of Art: Folk Artists in the 21st Century, which commemorates the 10th Anniversary and the long-term legacy of the International Folk Art Market. The book explores why folk art matters in a modern world and why, more than ever, it’s every individual’s responsibility to sustain age-old folk art traditions for the future. Santa Fe native Padilla is an award-winning journalist and author who has written extensively about art, culture, and history in New Mexico and the Southwest. A graduate of the journalism program at the University of New Mexico, her articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, American Craft, Travel Holiday, Latina, El Palacio, Santa Fe Reporter, and elsewhere. Padilla received the 2009 New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in the category of literary arts. In 1996, she received the City of Santa Fe’s Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Literary Arts. Padilla’s books include The Chile Chronicles: Tales of a New Mexico Harvest, winner of the 1999 Historical Society of New Mexico’s Ralph Emerson Twitchell Award for a significant contribution to the field of history, and Low ’n Slow: Lowriding in New Mexico. Padilla’s book, El Rancho de las Golondrinas: Living History in New Mexico’s La Cíenega Valley, explores the history of the La Cienega Valley through the story of a fabled Spanish Colonial–era ranch that is now the site of the state’s only living history museum. She is editor and co-author of Conexiones: Connections in Spanish Colonial Art and a contributor to Spanish New Mexico: The Spanish Colonial Arts Society Collection.
MANUEL (MJR) MONTOYA, PHD
Dr. Manuel (MJR) Montoya is an assistant professor of Global Structures and International Business at the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was born in Mora, New Mexico, and received his B.A. in English literature and economics from the University of New Mexico. He has master’s degrees from Oxford University and New York University. A Truman Scholar and Rhodes Scholar, Manuel has also served as a policy analyst for the U.S. Senate. He received his Ph.D. at Emory University, in foreign relations and comparative literature. He is also a participant in international efforts to eliminate child soldiers from major conflict regions. His research interests include global structures and the world political economy, international human rights, geopolitics of literature, political theory, global structures, world systems theory, postcolonial theory, 19th- and 20th-century philosophy, economics, public policy, and aesthetics. He is the founder of his own consulting firm, In Medias Res Consulting, providing education on global structures to major NGOs, nonprofits, and transnational corporations. An amateur watchmaker, poet, and short story writer, Dr. Montoya believes deeply in the value of handmade goods and is dedicated to value systems that allow handmade work to address issues of sustainability in the world economy. As adviser for UNM and the Anderson School’s International Business Students Global, he has worked with UNM’s top student on broad issues that are setting the global agenda.
