SWAIA - South Western Association Indian Art
Educational Mission to Santa Fe Indian Market
SWAIA Indian Art Market Educational mission hosted by Craft Alliance Atlantic.
The PEI delegation : Nora Richard, Noella Moore joined the group of 6 indigenous artists from Atlantic Canada to visit the famed Santa Fe market.
On Friday we visited the Museum of Indian Arts & culture MIAC We toured the museum with the curator of Ethnology Tony Chavarria that has a wealth of knowledge and was absolutely facilitating. This was followed by a talk with the very unique pottery artist Paphonee (Snow Woman) who shared her life story with us. We all fell under her story telling spells. After a lunch at the Calbaza food truck we entered the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian and toured the exhibitions with the museum director Henrietta Lidchi. The museum houses the largest southwestern jewelry collection and a beautiful exhibit of Marcus Amerman beaded portraits.
Our next visit was to view the SWAIA award winning art at the convention centre. This was a magnificent collection of contemporary art. Nora was so excited to see baskets made by students mentored by Jeremy Frey and Noella found the variety of stunning jewelry and pottery spectacular.
On Saturday we made our way to the SWAIA market that took over the whole downtown area with over 900 booths . We learned about the markets history and had a special tour of the market with a professional basket collector Henry Day and visited the Canadian North West territories booth. the market was very crowded with 100,000 visitors.
The following day Sunday, we visited the Pathway market, Poeh Cultural Centre and the Free Indian market. We had our final meal together and departed for Albuquerque.
This mission was filled with beauty and was a real eye opener for all the indigenous artists that attended from Atlantic Canada. We want to thank Bernard Burton for spearheading this mission and allowing us to take part and we would like to thank John McKay for his part in making this mission and future endeavours a reality.
