Indigenous Art, Culture, and Community: Works from the Ruth and Sydney Schultz Collection

Santa Fe Indian Market is a major annual event that takes place each August. The market features approximately 1,000 Native artists from more than 200 Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada and brings around 100,000 people to Santa Fe. Indian Market is a bustling place that fosters both local communities (there are often different generations of artist families selling alongside each other) and global engagement – visitors from around the world attend each year. Indigenous Art, Culture, and Community features ceramics, beadwork, prints, paintings, and other artwork produced by many award-winning Native American artists, most of whom have participated in Indian Market. This exhibition explores how artistic creation at Indian Market has been the center of creative community building and how it has grown to include artists from Indigenous nations across the United States and Canada over the last century. Objects in this exhibition come from the collection of Ruth and Sidney Schultz who attended and supported Indian Market for over 50 years.

Each section in the exhibition presents topics central to Santa Fe’s Indian Market: the market’s history, the jury and awards processes, and the importance of family and people coming together. The exhibition also explores specific mediums such as ceramics and beadwork, works that depict the figure, and how artists integrate pop and contemporary culture into their work. The section Indian Market in Context shows how Indian Market evolved out of the influx of tourists seeking souvenirs made in the Southwest beginning in the late 19th century. Over the 100 years Indian Market has been operating, it has grown to support and empower participating artists rather than exploit them. A major part of the experience is the judging and awards ceremony which can have a significant positive impact on an artist’s career. Works included in Family and Community show how artists come together to share ideas and skills and sometimes collaborate on projects.

The exhibition explores how artists continually develop their own artistic style while utilizing traditional materials and techniques. In the early days of Indian Market, artists were encouraged to maintain the historical artistic styles of their community. There is now an appreciation for and understanding that tradition is constantly changing, as many of the works in Creating Art from the Earth, Beadwork, and Popular Culture demonstrate. Beadworks by Teri Greeves and Marcus Amerman and ceramic works by Jason Garcia are examples of how artists can push work in new directions while using traditional materials and techniques. Miniature ceramics by Thomas Natseway are examples of how artists blur the line between what is considered “traditional” and “non-traditional.”

Indigenous Art, Culture, and Community celebrates the ongoing creativity, skill, and ingenuity of Native artists and the community that is fostered by Santa Fe’s Indian Market.