International Folks

The last day of the

International Folk Art Market

was colorful and, well, overcast. They called it Family Day with good reason, as the young and not-so-young flocked together to

Museum Hill

to catch the tail end of the party, neither too warm nor too crowded, as the previous day was said to have been. The event represented something more than just another elaborate art show in a city full of artsy people, if one could get past the exhibitionist consumerism that permeated much of the market’s public face.---

One booth was occupied by a group of mostly illiterate

Pakistani

women, who put the proceeds from their handmade quilts toward education funds for their children. Another booth held displaced

Samburu

women from the village of

Umoja, Kenya

, whose jewelry-making supports their livelihood. Yet another contained colorful and elaborate beadwork from

Morocco

.

Indians, Mexicans, South Africans, Afghanis

and more—approximately

175 artists

from

over 50 countries

were represented at

IFAM

, artists whose work had been juried by an international panel of collectors and curators and chosen for inclusion at the market.

Haitians

—struggling to regain some semblance of normality after the cataclysmic earthquake that rocked their country on January 12, 2010—turned out in force with papier mâché, sculptures made of recycled steel drums and mask making, with proceeds going to support their families and the struggling markets in

Haiti

.

Santa Fe Reporter