The Santa Fe Indian Market is an annual art market held in Santa Fe, New Mexico on the weekend following the third Thursday in August. The event draws an estimated 150,000 people to the city from around the world. [1] The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA), a nonprofit organization hosts the market, which showcases work by about 1,000 Native American and First Nations artists from Native American tribes and Indigenous nations from coast to coast. [2] [3] [4]
The first Indian Market, called the annual Southwest Indian Fair and Industrial Arts and Crafts Exhibition, [5] was part of Fiesta de Santa Fe sponsored by the Museum of New Mexico. [6] Kenneth M. Chapman credits art advocate Rose Dougan (life partner of Vera von Blumenthal) for first suggesting the idea of a competitive Native American art fair [7] in 1922 as part of an expanded Santa Fe Fiesta. Edgar L. Hewett, director of the Museum of New Mexico, viewed the early Indian Fair events as part of his efforts for public anthropology. The events were held inside the National Guard Armory with an admission fee charged. Pueblo pottery, Navajo textiles, and Pueblo Flatstyle paintings, such as produced by artists at the Studio and the Santa Fe Indian School, were the primary art forms represented; however, the first place award for best tribal display went to beadwork from Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. [8]
Initially, museum staff and later Native artists and educators served as judges, screening work and awarding prizes. Potters themselves were not present for the sale of their works. [9] These early markets were intended to counteract museum and anthropological professionals’ concerns that tourist curio market's demand for pottery was reducing the quality and authenticity of Pueblo pottery. [10]
In 1936, the New Mexico Association on Indian Affairs took over the event. [3] Between 1933 and 1936, events were held at multiple pueblos, rather than in Santa Fe. Maria Chabot returned events to Santa Fe and the NMAIA organized transportation for artists and attached "labels of approval" to the works they believed represented the best works. [9] Today, the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts organizes the market. [4]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the market went virtual for the month of August 2020, under the guidance of executive director Kimberly Peone (Colville Confederated Tribes/Eastern Band Cherokee). [11] [12] The market took place in a hybrid format in 2021, with in-person and virtual events. Only 600 artists were accepted for in-person booths. The remaining 500 artists juried into the market waitlisted and offered opportunities to participate virtually. [12] For the first time, in-person attendance was ticketed rather than free. [13] Santa Fe Indian Market returned to fully in-person operation in August 2022. [14]
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Kenneth Chapman helped launched the fair. The first Native American to lead SWAIA was Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi), a textile artist and designer, who led the organization from 1980 and 1982 for no pay. [15] At the time, SWAIA only had one paid employee and a loaned office at La Fonda on the Plaza. Sakiestewa raised enough funds that her successor finally had a salary.
John Torres Nez, PhD (Diné) was chief operating officer from 2012 to 2014 [16] before resigning and cofounding an alternative art market. Dallin Maybee (Northern Arapaho/Seneca) became interim COO in 2014, then COO until he stepped down in 2018. [17]
Ira Wilson (Diné) served as director from 2018 to 19 [18] Kim Peone (Colville Confederated Tribes/Eastern Band Cherokee) was director from 2020 to 2023. [15] When her contract was terminated, Jaime Shultze (Northern Cheyenne/Sisseton Wahpeton) became interim director in 2023 and permanent director in 2023. [15]
The market features pottery, jewelry, textile weavings, painting, sculpture, beadwork, basketry, and other traditional and contemporary work. It is the oldest and largest juried Native American art showcase in the United States. [19] The economic impact of the Market has been calculated at more than $19 million. [20]
Beginning in 2014, the annual market began including a couture runway fashion show event in its programming. The event has grown annually. The 2022 program included two runway shows at the Santa Fe Convention Center with more than 1,000 spectators each night. The shows featured celebrity runway models: Quannah Chasinghorse, Amber Midthunder, Zahn McClarnon, Jessica Matten, Kiowa Gordon, Eugene Brave Rock and D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai. [21] The founding director of SWAIA's Indigenous Fashion Show is curator and art historian Amber-Dawn Bear Robe (Siksika Nation.) [22]
Artists display their work in booths around the Santa Fe Plaza and adjacent streets, selling directly to the general public. In order to participate, all artists must provide proof of enrollment in one of the federally recognized tribes, and their work must meet strict quality and authentic materials standards. [1] Art experts judge the work and distribute awards and prize money in various categories.
On the evening before the Market's opening, members of SWAIA may attend a preview of representative works by the artists as well as the winners in each category. It is a way for potential buyers to preview the winning artworks and items for sale. Many buyers arrive downtown well before dawn. Collectors used to sleep in the Plaza overnight. It is not unusual for prominent artists to sell out within a few hours.
Dorothy Dunn Kramer was an American art instructor who created The Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School.
Lucy Martin Lewis was a Native American potter from Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. She is known for her black-on-white decorative ceramics made using traditional techniques.
Maria Margarita "Margaret" Tafoya was the matriarch of Santa Clara Pueblo potters. She was a recipient of a 1984 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Marie Zieu Chino (1907–1982) was a Native American potter from Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. Marie and her friends Lucy M. Lewis and Jessie Garcia are recognized as the three most important Acoma potters during the 1950s. Along with Juana Leno, they have been called "The Four Matriarchs" who "revived the ancient style of Acoma pottery." The inspiration for many designs used on their pottery were found on old potsherds gathered to use for temper. Together they led the revival of ancient pottery forms including the Mimbres, Tularosa and other various cultures in the Anasazi region. This revival spread to other potters who also accepted the old styles, which led to new innovative designs and variations of style and form.
Nathan Youngblood is a Native American potter from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, United States.
The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture is a museum of Native American art and culture located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is one of eight museums in the state operated by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums as part of the Museum of New Mexico system. The museum and its programs are financially supported by the Museum of New Mexico Foundation.
Martha Hopkins Struever (1931–2017) was an American Indian art dealer, author, and leading scholar on historic and contemporary Pueblo Indian pottery and Pueblo and Navajo Indian jewelry. In June 2015, a new gallery in the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, was named for her. The first permanent museum gallery devoted to Native American jewelry, the Martha Hopkins Struever Gallery, is part of the Center for the Study of Southwestern Jewelry.
Gail Bird and Yazzie Johnson are Southwest American Indian artists known for their innovative jewelry which uses varied stones and blends both contemporary and prehistoric design motifs.
Douglas Miles is a White Mountain Apache-San Carlos Apache-Akimel O'odham painter, printmaker and photographer from Arizona, who founded Apache Skateboards and Apache Skate Team.
Art of the American Southwest is the visual arts of the Southwestern United States. This region encompasses Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of California, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. These arts include architecture, ceramics, drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, and other media, ranging from the ancient past to the contemporary arts of the present day.
Virgil Ortiz is a Pueblo artist, known for his pottery and fashion design from Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico. Ortiz makes a variety of pottery, including traditional Cochiti figurative pottery, experimental figurative pottery, traditional pottery vessels. His clothing and jewelry designs are influenced by traditional Native American pattern and aesthetics. He is best known for his edgy pottery figures, his contemporary take on the traditional Cochiti pottery figures (monos) from the late 1800s.
Ramona Sakiestewa is a contemporary Hopi Native American artist who lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sakiestewa is renowned for her tapestries, works on paper, public art, and architectural installations.
Dyani White Hawk is a contemporary artist and curator of Sicangu Lakota, German, and Welsh ancestry based out of Minnesota. From 2010 to 2015, White Hawk was a curator for the Minneapolis gallery All My Relations. As an artist, White Hawk's work aesthetic is characterized by a combination of modern abstract painting and traditional Lakota art. White Hawk's pieces reflect both her Western, American upbringing and her indigenous ancestors mediums and modes for creating visual art.
Cara Romero is an American photographer known for her digital photography that examines Indigenous life through a contemporary lens. She lives in both Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Mojave Desert. She is an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe.
Zoë Marieh Urness is a photographer of Alaskan Tlingit and Cherokee Native American heritage. She creates portraits of modern Indigenous cultures in traditional regalia and settings.
Susan Folwell is a Native American artist from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, known for her work in the ceramic industry. Her work ties in Native designs and history and has been used by Folwell to demonstrate her viewpoints on society and politics. Folwell has been described by the Heard Museum as an "innovator in Pueblo pottery".
Jason Garcia is a contemporary Native American artist in the United States, who was born in Santa Clara, New Mexico. His work has been exhibited the Smithsonian in Washington D.C, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the Palm Springs Art Museum, and many more. He won the 2018 Mentor Fellowship Award under the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation amongst many others.
Kenneth M. "Chap" Chapman (1875–1968) was an art historian, arts administrator, anthropologist, writer, teacher, and researcher of Native American art and culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The New Mexico Archive said of Chapman: "An advocate of Indian arts, his endeavors led to the revitalization of Pueblo pottery, the founding of the first Indian Fair and the Indian Arts Fund."
Patricia Michaels is a Native American fashion designer who works under the fashion label PM Waterlily. She is a citizen of the Pueblo of Taos.