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Find out more about the 2025 Winter Spanish Market
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The Winter Spanish Market will be back at the Santa Fe Community Center on Saturday, Dec. 6, and Sunday, Dec. 7, with over 50 adult and youth artists.
“The Winter (Spanish) Market we think of as sort of a smaller, seasonal, kind of intimate event that just keeps the art form on people’s minds during the year,” Brian O’Connell, Atrisco Heritage Foundation CFO/COO, said.
Juan Lopez has been selling at the market for 26 years and specializes in filigree art.
“Filigree art is a process of making jewelry and also sculptures,” Lopez said, “which I have done with very thin, very fine silver or gold.”
Lopez received the 2025 Master’s Award for Lifetime Achievement from Spanish Market.
O’Connell described Lopez’s art as refined, delicate and precise. “He’s been committed to this his whole adult life,” O’Connell said.
The Winter Spanish Market showcases family lineages, like youth artist Alejandro Atencio, who was mentored by his uncle Felipe Rivera, a juried adult artist.
“I think it’s a privilege to be able to do the work that I do, and I love it.” Atencio said. “I have a passion for it.”
Rivera has passed down his knowledge of painting bultos and retablos, and working with precious metals.
“It’s a dying art form, and I think the children, this next generation, would be nice to be able to pass it down to their kids and to keep the tradition alive,” Rivera said.
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O’Connell said it is nice to watch the long-time artists with the new generation.
“They’re just really interested in sharing because they want to make sure that the forms that they dedicated their careers to will continue,” O’Connell said, “and the youth just soak it up.”
Atencio started learning from his uncle a few years ago and said that Rivera was the best mentor he could have had.
“It was incredible,” Atencio said. “I’ve been learning for about four years now, and it’s really brought me a lot closer to my mom’s side of the family.”
Rivera has taught Atencio along with his own kids. He said he enjoys teaching because it gives him time to spend with his family and they all come to work together in the shop.
He was inspired to start creating art by his own uncle and grandparents.
“(My uncle) used to make retablos when I was a kid, so I used to like those,” Rivera said, “and my grandpa used to make furniture. So I kind of always have been around the art form, and my grandma made pottery.”
Rivera said he shows his students the basics, but encourages individuality while sticking to the traditional.
“I encourage them to have their own individual style,” Rivera said. “I told them, I don’t want your stuff to look like mine. I want it to be better than mine, and express it in your own way.”
