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
.
