Market Daze

Make way for the 63rd annual Spanish Market

Mercury rises, thoughts of trading your soul for an AC unit linger in your brain and monsoon season has made your desire to wash your car null. It can only mean one thing: Summer is in full swing in Santa Fe, and with it, a bevy of outdoor markets guaranteed to make sure the season is a culturally rich one.

Indian Market and the newest addition to the calendar, Indigenous Fine Art Market, are a month away. In the meantime, the latest iteration of Spanish Market is here to cure your art market blues.

Created in the 1920s to "to preserve and promote the history, artifacts and artisans of the Spanish Colonial Arts," the Spanish Colonial Arts Society has helmed the market for the last 63 years, upping the ante by supporting youth and emerging artists, as well as blurring the line between traditional and contemporary.

New this time around is the weeklong ¡Viva la Cultura! fest, which leads up to market and according to executive director David F Setford was designed to be "a concerted attempt to feature the best of Hispanic New Mexican

culture and put the fine art, which is in Spanish Market, into focus."

Fostering young artists, Setford says, is an intrinsic part of the market's mission. As such, Marcos Ray Serna, Kyle Fast Wolf and Matthew Flores make the transition this year from youth market to the more established one, or as he calls it, "the big pond."

"People are more receptive to a fresh take on old ideas," 15-year market veteran Arthur López says. For this current installment, López (pictured), plans on presenting an "urban altar"—an altar screen presented as a modern-day apartment building with saints peering off its windows and storefronts.

A separate celebration along Lincoln Avenue, the Contemporary Hispanic Market also takes place on the same weekend. Airbrush artist Joey Montoya, who is participating in it for the eighth year, echoes López' sentiment.

"Before, the only airbrush art you really saw was on lowrider cars and T-shirts. Now I believe there are three or four people including myself in the market who do either airbrush, spray paint or something that isn't typical oil, acrylic, bristle brush," the 33-year-old says. "I like Contemporary Hispanic Market because there is such a wide variety of art that is made, and I would recommend for anybody who does some type of art—whatever it may be—to try and get in."

Spanish Market
8 am-5 pm Saturday and Sunday,
July 26 & 27. Free.
Historic Santa Fe Plaza

Letters to the Editor

Mail letters to PO Box 4910 Santa Fe, NM 87502 or email them to editor[at]sfreporter.com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity.

We also welcome you to follow SFR on social media (on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and comment there. You can also email specific staff members from our contact page.