Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Material Culture

At This Santa Fe Fair, You Can Buy Crafts From Over 100 International Artists

Craftspeople from more than 50 countries came together for the annual event. Here, a shortlist of the standout makers.

Indigo-dyed textiles by the Mali-based cooperative Djiguiyaso (above) were featured at the 2018 International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe, N.M.Credit...Adriaan Louw

For one weekend every summer, artists from around the world come with their wares to Santa Fe, N.M., for the International Folk Art Market. And it was here I recently had the most wonderful shopping experience of my life. Imagine a treasure-filled souk of exquisitely crafted objects and textiles in which you know everything to be authentic, the best of its kind, but with prices clearly marked, so no haggling. The enthusiastic and informative sellers are the same people who have made what you see. They, along with others from their communities and cooperatives, have dyed and stitched and knitted and woven and embroidered and painted and hammered and thrown and hand printed everything on offer.

Folk art is not just funnily painted animals or colorful dioramas — it is the manifestation of some of humankind’s finest manual skills. And it is an expression of a community within a culture. Humans have always made the things we need — vessels, blankets, clothing — in ways that transcend necessity. As Muhammad Yunus, whose pioneering work in microfinance earned him a Nobel Peace Prize and who served as the honorary chair of this year’s market, said to me, “All those marks in the caves, no one paid for it, nobody bought it, but they did it. Making things with our hands is the most natural human expression of creativity.”

Image
Embroidered textiles by the Indian cooperative Bhairvis Chikan.Credit...Courtesy of the artist

This year, over 100 artists from more than 50 countries — some of whom had never left their country or boarded a plane — made it through the nonprofit’s rigorous vetting process. Many came from countries with an average income of only $3 per day. Here, without middlemen, designers, or retailers, these artisans take most of the money back home, where they can use it to support their communities and traditions. (Unfortunately, this year, to offset the organization’s rising expenses, returning artists took home 80 percent of what was spent, down from 90 percent in previous years. Additionally, Donna Karan’s Urban Zen and the Mexican fashion designer Carla Fernández were permitted booths; both are brands that work with artisans, but neither is a maker in need of the opportunities the market was created to serve.)

Still, the event satisfies. Over the course of two and a half days, I encountered the highest density of traditional crafts from around the world in any one place: Azerbaijani jewels, Laotian silks, Mexican vicuña ponchos, Malian indigo dresses, Rwandan coiled baskets, Ukranian peasant shirts, Hungarian hand-loomed tablecloths, Syrian blown glass, Czech pottery, Uruguayan knits, Palestinian embroidery, Moroccan boucherouite rugs and Nigerian silver and leather work — it goes on and on. Below, a spotlight on three artisans whose work I was particularly excited about.

Image
A suzani coat by Gulnora Odilova of Uzbekistan.Credit...Courtesy of the artist

Uzbek folk traditions were banned under Soviet rule for supposedly being backward and nationalistic, but they are now experiencing a renewed interest. There were booths devoted to carpets, including Persian-influenced silk rugs dyed with onion skins and walnut hulls, regal silk-embroidered velvet coats and slippers, and colorful clothing and home items in the blurry tie-dyed zigzags of ikat. Uzbekistan’s most famous textile, however, is suzani, which is done in a few different styles of stitching that often share similar patterns of stylized florals and ancient symbols. Gulnora Odilova is a recognized master of a striking and less familiar variety called Shakhrisabz, which is similar to needlepoint and yields a dense allover pattern. Odilova helped revive the nearly dead tradition of Shakhrisabz — named after the town where it originated in the 17th century and from which she hails — by creating great-looking bags, coats and knee-high boots, as well as through a school she established.


Image
Hand-printed scarves by Abdulrauf Khatri of India.Credit...Courtesy of the artist

Of all the excellent Indian textiles I saw, I was particularly excited about a style of block printing called Ajrakh, made in the remote Kutch area of Gujarat, and traditionally used only for the turbans of the men in certain Muslim communities. Unlike Hindu motifs, which borrow from the natural world, Muslim motifs are not representational, and Ajrakh is densely patterned with geometrics usually in the blues of indigo and rusty reds of madder. Abdulrauf Khatri is a 10th-generation printer who has devoted his life to the survival of this art, committing himself to the same unmechanized processes and vegetable dyes that go back 400 years, including the painstaking and difficult task of hand printing on both sides so that no area is left unadorned.


Image
Vetiver baskets by Marie Alexandrine Rasoanantenaina of Madagascar.Credit...Keith Recker

There was only one artisan from Madagascar, Marie Alexandrine Rasoanantenaina, whose booth drew hordes of visitors because of the seductive scent of vetiver that wafted in the air. Vetiver is a grass with fragrant roots that Rasoanantenaina — who started out selling underwear she made from her seamstress grandmother’s scraps — has championed as a natural fiber well-suited for weaving fantastic-looking rugs, mats, baskets and totes. She has done extensive research on which leaves, bark and roots are best for weaving and dyeing, and she now has a repertoire of 40 colors. The indigo blue in her striped vetiver rugs, however, is made from old bluejeans she has cleverly stripped and used as a yarn. Thanks in large part to microloans, created by Yunus to help artisans become entrepreneurs, Rasoanantenaina today employs 28 women, has a nonprofit dedicated to promoting Malagasy handicraft and exports her work to Europe and across Africa.

Deborah Needleman is a contributing editor for T Magazine. More about Deborah Needleman

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT