Cultural creativity: Traditional Spanish Market showcases Spanish Colonial art by over 200 artists

Traditional Spanish Market, the oldest and largest juried art show of its kind, returns to Santa Fe this weekend.

The market, which is in its 72nd year, draws visitors from around the world. It takes place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Santa Fe Plaza. The market is free and open to the public. Parking will be available outside the Plaza area. Roads leading into and around the Plaza will be closed to vehicle traffic.

The Spanish Market Mass will be celebrated from 9 to 10 a.m. on Sunday at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis de Assisi, 131 Cathedral Place. The Mass will be followed by a traditional procession from the cathedral to the Plaza bandstand for the blessing of the artists.

More than 200 artists who practice a form of Spanish Colonial art will be part of the market. A full list of participating artists and an event map can be found at traditionalspanishmarket.org.

“There’s 19 categories of art that (artists) can be a part of,” said Peter Sanchez, CEO of the Atrisco Heritage Foundation, which is the operational steward of the market. “They have to jury in with their peers, which means they have to prove that they are practicing the art form in its authentic manner, according to guidelines established by the artists.”

Sanchez said very few art markets are juried like the Traditional Spanish Market.

“This gives it a level of prestige and uniqueness that keeps it sort of very impressionable for everybody who sees it,” he said.

Artists must create their artwork as it would have been made hundreds of years ago. There are criteria that need to be met in order to keep the art form pure and traditional. There is some allowance for innovation, but nothing over the top.

“The most important thing is you have to demonstrate that you’re practicing the art form in a manner like they did originally, 400 years ago,” Sanchez said. “For example, the paint — you don’t go buy the paint at a paint store. You have to derive the paint from colors in nature, like flowers and things like that. The straw has to be done a particular way because it has to be folded and manipulated in such a way that it can look like gold, because gold straw was the replacement for gold, (and) tin was the replacement for silver. There are these materials that have to be used in the way they were originally used.”

Spanish colonial art was born in this region during the Spanish settlement period in the 1600s, Sanchez said. The Spanish settled between El Paso and southern Colorado, with most settling in New Mexico.

“They had to sort of make their own way from things they learned in their past,” Sanchez said. “So they developed art the way they would develop their language skills and their cooking skills and their home building skills. They developed art during this early settlement period, this colonial period, and this art became rather unique because it’s not something that was built in Spain. It wasn’t built in Mexico. It was built in this area of New Mexico during a very early settlement period.

“It’s a very unique art form. It’s not an art form you see anywhere in the world and it manages to move its way from generation to generation, all into modern day.”