Folklore in Santa Fe offers art and tea aimed at soothing the soul

Just a few blocks from Canyon Road in Santa Fe is an art gallery and lifestyle shop called Folklore, where visitors can “really slow down, get present and experience beauty and healing,” according to owner Kelly Dye.

“I opened Folklore in November of 2019, which was just a couple months before COVID started. So, it was a wild time to start a business,” Dye said.

Dye had developed an interest in artisan-made crafts and sustainable design while studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons School of Design in New York City. After graduating, she spent time traveling and exploring global craft traditions.

“My original vision for Folklore was to source from artisan groups around the world, but when COVID hit and travel was so restricted, that vision shifted to being more focused on local makers,” Dye said.

Looking back, she sees it as a blessing in disguise.

“That was the biggest gift and really the thing I should have been doing all along, because people coming to visit Santa Fe want to shop and purchase and support Santa Fe-made things,” she said. “There are so many amazing makers in New Mexico, and it was really cool to get to know the community.”

Although Folklore began as a lifestyle shop, the focus has increasingly shifted toward visual art.

Folklore’s current exhibition, “Desire Lines” by Emelie Richardson, consists of handwoven beige and indigo-colored tapestries that blur the line between craft traditions and abstract painting. The exhibition runs through Aug. 11.

Richardson has been part of Folklore from the very beginning.

“When I opened Folklore in 2019, I had Emelie’s weavings on the walls. She was the first artist I featured, and it was the first time she’d ever had her work up in a public space,” Dye said. “Her weavings always sold really well. I would commission three or four at a time, sell them, and then commission three or four more.”

“Emelie is really close to my heart, just because we started on this journey together almost six years ago, and I have witnessed her career grow,” Dye said. “This is her second solo show with us. We did her first solo show last summer. I’m really proud of her, and I think it’s been neat to be on a parallel path in our evolution and grow together.”

Two years ago, Dye opened a second Folklore location in Laguna Beach, California.

“But I didn’t want to do a lifestyle shop,” Dye said. “I decided I wanted to open an art gallery instead.”

She realized that several of the textile artists she was already working with would suit the new gallery.

“My first show in Laguna Beach was a textile art show, and I featured Emelie, along with a couple other textile artists from New Mexico,” Dye said.

Dye has since transformed Folklore’s Santa Fe location into more of an art gallery, in line with the California space, although she still sells jewelry, tea and other small items and gifts.

“I feel like because we always had Emelie’s weavings on the wall when we were a lifestyle shop, her aesthetic became interwoven with our identity aesthetically. For me, she has served as the foundation of what we’ve grown into,” Dye said. “Even now that I represent 16 artists, including a bunch of textile artists, but also painters and ceramics artists and other mediums — plus 11 jewelry designers — I always come back to Emelie. She’s really foundational to our aesthetic.”

Dye highlighted several other local textile artists, including the Santa Fe-based Italian American artist Alysha Colangeli, who works with layered botanical imagery and natural materials. Folklore’s next exhibition will be a solo show by Briana DeVoe White, who is known for her floral paintings and wallpapers.

“At the moment, I really love natural pigment and earth pigment painting,” Dye said.

Dye explained that she naturally gravitates toward soothing colors and textures, which contributes to Folklore’s unique ambiance.

“Every piece that I show — everything I have in the gallery — are things that I would personally want to live with. And I think of my home is kind of like a sanctuary. It’s a place of rest and retreat and a place to go to be centered,” Dye said. “So, I tend to gravitate, primarily, toward natural materials and calming palettes. What you see reflected in the folklore is what I personally like from my life.”

In the back of the gallery is a tearoom with low benches and meditation cushions.

“I’ve always been really into different healing modalities and spiritual traditions,” Dye said. “So, we went through several iterations of having different healing art practitioners in residence.”

“When I made the shift to the gallery, that coincided for me with a really deep interest in tea. So, I decided to clarify and refine that element of what we were doing. So, instead of having a bunch of different practitioners, I just went all-in on the tea,” Dye said.

“So, now we have the back room set up for the tea ceremony,” Dye continued. “We sell a bunch of really beautiful, aged ceremonial Chinese teas, and have some very senior teachers come regularly to teach workshops.”

One of the tea masters who has served tea at Folklore multiple times is a Taoist-influenced practitioner who goes by the mononym Po.

“Po’s approach to tea is that it’s vibrational medicine. He’s very into tuning into the energy of the tea, practicing mindfulness, and just noticing how it feels,” Dye said. “And that’s a very individual experience, rather than being focused on the choreography or like how some people do tea ceremonies in silence — which is also a beautiful experience. But what makes Po special is his more energetic, vibrational approach.”

In addition to their master workshops, Folklore offers a community tea every Saturday morning, from 8:30-10 a.m., which is donation based.

“We have around 10 servers who volunteer to come and share tea in a variety of ways, from different traditions,” Dye said.

One of Folklore’s mainstays is its contemporary jewelry selection, which focuses on local emerging designers.

“We have such amazing jewelry talent in New Mexico, and Santa Fe specifically, so I felt when I moved here that there was an opportunity to showcase some of these designers. And it felt like no one else was really highlighting the work of younger designers,” Dye said. “It’s not kind of like the big turquoise cuffs that you see around. It’s definitely more contemporary. It’s more minimal, refined and delicate than what I was seeing anywhere else in town.”

Dye said that many people who come through the doors at Folklore tell her they feel a calming, healing energy.

“I never know how to respond other than to say that I appreciate that feedback,” Dye said. “I’ve always been very sensitive energetically, and I have a deep spiritual practice myself. So, I feel like the way that I curate, and even the people I work with, help contribute to that energy. Everybody that I show, I love as a person. So, just from that standpoint, the people creating the art have great energy.”

Folklore in Santa Fe offers art and tea aimed at soothing the soul