BEST IN SHOW | HAPPENINGS | WORLD OF CABANA
Artist, designer and craft expert, Peter Speliopoulos, is a regular at Santa Fe's International Folk Art Market ~ a spectacular annual event where 148 artists from 57 countries display their works in the New Mexico capital. Peter shares his highlights with Cabana.
BY PETER SPELIOPOULOS | HAPPENINGS | 27 SEPTEMBER 2025
International Folk Art Market Signage, photographed by Gabriella Marks.
Discovering the wonders of the International Folk Art Market is to take a world survey of the greatest folk arts and crafts, all in a long weekend. It is an opportunity to savor the stories spoken from the artists themselves, to discover time honored traditions and to understand how folk art is alive and changing throughout the world. And, of course, the shopping is incredible— a tangible “atlas of craftsmanship,” with handmade textiles, embroideries, ceramics, baskets, jewelry, carpets, clothing and accessories just waiting to be acquired, to bring you joy, and to foster new ways to live now.
Judith Espinar, co-founder, and heart and soul of the Market remarks: “The Folk Art market is a global cultural feast. Celebrating the beauty and meaning of handmade treasures that speak to us with the voices of Time and Place… Reminding us of the deep rooted need to both Treasure and Respect the Creation and Preservation of Global Cultural Values… and to LIVE with Meaning and Beauty in our lives.”
Under the cathedral sky of Santa Fe in the natural beauty of the high desert, and beneath the umbrella pines and trumpet vines of the Railyard Park, the Market is an epicenter, like the ancient agora, and the bazaar, souk and plaza, of culture and commerce, of inspiration and experience. These are just some of the 148 artists from 57 countries featured at the 21st annual Folk Art Market whose excellent works connect us to our humanity and whose stories communicate the history of craftsmanship. Here are my highlights.
Anitha N — Siddi Kavand, India
With the objective of transfering the craft of the Indian kantha tradition into a unique art form, Anitha N has worked for years with Siddi women in Karnataka— immigrants from Ethiopia and Mozambique, whose kavands or colorful quilts are stitched from sari scraps and old clothes. Each kavand is made by one woman, expressing her personal history with her special signature. The quilts are functional, exemplifying creativity and sustainability, imbuing the artist with a sense of honor and value, often after years of abuse and violence. They are modern masterpieces. I think Gloria Vanderbilt might have adored them too.
Mehmet Cetinkaya Gallery, Turkey
Using only silk, hand spun and hand dyed, and the 16th century surface darning technique, Mehmet Cetinkaya creates majestic tapestries inspired by the historical textiles of Central Asia, Anatolia, and the Caucasus. Through extensive research and with his own artistic interpretation, he fashions these into the finest kaftans, coats, hats and decorative objects.
Zehra Cetinkaya conveys how with a women’s collective of approximately 65 embroiderers, and where one square meter of embroidery requires one year of fine work, they seek to preserve the rich patterns of the old world, which live in the contemporary textile world. Renzo Mongiardino wrote “ I think it is a mistake to treat ancient and modern as if barriers divided them…” Cetinkaya’s works would have found a happy place in Mongiardino’s dressing room, full of Turkish influence.
Moussa Albaka and Haoua Albaka, Niger
Trading throughout the Sahara via the camel caravan since generations, the Albaka family are Tuareg tribesmen from Niger, West Africa. Moussa is a master silversmith who made his first piece at age twelve, having learned the craft from his great grandfather. His Tuareg masterworks of engraved silver and repoussé, often feature unique open work motifs— jewelry designed for traditional medicinal purposes, or which tell stories.
The Tuareg cross is nonreligious and represents “love.” Culturally, men do metal work and women work with leather. Having learned leatherwork from her mother, Moussa’s sister Haoua has become a master of her craft, creating tassels, pouches and bags in the historic tradition of Tuareg camel bags. Leather tanned with natural plant dyes is worked with appliqué, conveying sacred geometry, constellations, and symbols of the four directions. It's channeling Talitha Getty in the 1970s.
Zamira Komilova, Uzbekistan
In Bukhara, carpet weaving is a rigorous communal activity. Carpets are made at home on vertical wooden looms, where mothers teach daughters and grandmothers trim the pile of hand knotted silk creations. Zamira Komilova guides a workshop of 25 women, designing carpets based on ancient patterns that have crossed the Silk Road for centuries.
The wool warps are often knotted with up to one thousand knots per inch, with a carpet requiring the skill of many hands, and up to six months to finish. One of Central Asia’s oldest traditions continues robustly today, with carpets originally layered in the tents of nomadic tribes, in the palaces of the nobility, and in the magical interiors which Mongiardino created for Rudolf Nureyev.
Juana Gomez Ramirez, Mexico
Strolling from booth to booth, one is suddenly confronted by the astonishing ceramic jaguars created by the artist Juana Gomez Ramirez - unique in their scale and power, and in the refinement of their craftsmanship. Jaguars are sacred animals to the Tzeltal and other ancient indigenous cultures and have been worshiped among the Mayan peoples since millennia. Juana learned clay making at the age of eight from her mother in Amatenango del Valle, an historic pottery making village in Chiapas.
Juana's sculptures are hand built from local clay, and fired in the pre-Hispanic tradition, over an open fire. “I may not have seen a jaguar in real life, but I dream them into being through clay,” Juana states, proving the power of fantasy conjures inventive reality.
Nanasei Agyemang — Bolgawoven, Ghana
Baskets can blow one’s mind, when one considers they are probably the earliest craft forms— and especially when one discovers the sculptural basketry of Nanasei Agyemang! In the barren lands of Ghana’s Upper East Region, Nanasei found a way to naturally dye durable elephant grass, which has been hand-harvested and hand-split. Water softens the grasses, allowing them to be shaped into magnificent organic sculptures, truly expressions of wonder and surprise. With their fresh geometric patterning and sprays of loose fibers, they exist in the realm of contemporary art.
Siju Shamji Vishram, India
“Live life with all you see around you, and move forward,” is the message conveyed by the Chaumaκ, the oldest Bhujodi motif woven into the unparalleled works of Siju Shamji Vishram. Born into a textile dynasty, Vishram’s father started a weaving cooperative to preserve the ancient weaving techniques of Bhuj in the region of Kutch, which were introduced by the ancient Meghan Marwada people centuries before.
Today, Shamji is a master weaver, specializing in interlock weaving with patterns from extra-weft weave, all of hand spun, hand loomed, hand dyed cotton. He is considered India’s master indigo dyer, as witnessed in the impeccable shawls and bedspreads he creates, among the ultimate handwoven textiles of modern times.
Tetyana Skoromna, Ukraine
Transcending time and place, Tetyana Skoromna transforms her rich cultural heritage and classic techniques into contemporary works rooted in Ukrainian folk art. Specializing in reverse glass painting, Skoromna is a master of encaustic painting, employing a mixed media of animal glue, beeswax, egg tempera and soot, creating mash-ups of folk iconography from different ethnic groups such as the Galicians, Hutsuls, Slobozhans and Bukovinians. Her mission to preserve and showcase Ukraine’s artistic legacy, combined with her inventive artistic approach, earned her an IFAM Innovation Award.
Mexican Dreamweavers — TIXINDA, Mexico
Some things in life are truly rare, they exist in only one place in the world. And this is the case of the Purpura Pansa sea snail, which has been milked by the Mixtec people of Oaxaca for over 1500 years, yielding a sacred purple dye (the mollusks are not harmed) used by the Mixtec cooperative Mexican Dreamweavers. Using their own white and brown coyuchi cotton, and creating other naturally dyed colored threads, some of Mexico’s most sophisticated huipiles, blouses, caftans and shawls are born.
Handwoven on backstrap looms as it has been for centuries, this woven art form with its singular range of purple hues, called tixinda by the Mixtecs, is highly endangered due to the over harvesting of the rock snail, tourism and commercial development. We may sadly wake up from this dream in our lifetime!
Nilda Callañaupa — Centro de Textiles Tradicionales del Cusco
High in the Andes mountains of Peru, some of the most luxurious and authentic weavings in the contemporary world are created. Nilda Callañaupa is an indigenous Quechua master weaver and scholar, who co-founded the Centro de Textiles Tradicionales del Cusco in 1996, with the mission of researching and reviving textile traditions and empowering women weavers. Weaving has been a central aspect of Andean culture for centuries.
Andean textiles honor Pacha Mama, Mother Earth, with their weaving patterns representing the sacred landscape, and motifs of animals, plants and beings. Wrap yourself up in a poncho or blanket of the finest wool and alpaca, and surround yourself with nature’s everlasting beauty, as the Incas have done for centuries.
Reinel Antonio Mendoza — Divino Niño, Colombia
The sombrero vueltiao is the traditional hat of Colombia. Preserving this cultural heritage is Reinel Antonio Mendoza, who oversees hundreds of families of the indigenous Zenú group hand making these most stylish hats where the women do the trenzato hand braided technique, and the men stitch the hats with a foot pedal powered machine. It takes four days to complete one hat, made from wild arrow cane dyed with natural roots, leaves and earth. Most of the symbols woven into the hat represent ancestral legacies and boundaries, and are unique to each clan. Sombreros with pizzazz!
Hocine Bazine, Algeria
Wandering into the carpeted tent of Hocine Bazine is to discover a desert oasis of bold geometric patterns traditional to the Mozabite, a subgroup of the Amazigh people who for centuries have been known for their distinctive textiles, in Northern Algeria. Master weaver Bazine learned the craft from his grandmother. Lushly crafted from the finest sheep’s wool on vertical looms, the allure of these natural dyed and natural undyed carpets from Ghardaia seduce with their singluar visual language.
Tikkiwallah, Thailand / Laos
Some of the most functional, durable and beautifully made products designed with a contemporary aesthetic are to be found at Tikkiwallah, an artisan studio led by founder and designer Rachna Sachasing. Focusing on handwoven locally sourced fibers like cotton, hemp and piat jungle vine, naturally dyed, and working according to the region’s agricultural cycles and rich weaving traditions, each piece reflects the rhythms of rural life in Thailand and Laos. These home good have an essential and international appeal, easy to live with in their honesty, purity and heritage simplicity.
Dudung Alie Syahbana, Indonesia
New to the Market this year was the mesmerizing beauty of the batiks of Dudung Alie Syahbana, great works of enormous refinement. Because they embrace both tradition and innovation, one enters into a fantasy world of imagery based on wayang stories of Javanese romantic tales and religious legends, hand drawn and stamped wax resist designs on silk, hand dyed with indigo and luscious vegetable greens.
Shyabana, of Indonesian and Arab-Yemeni heritage, honors the roots of Javanese batik whilst propelling it into new realms. Batik never looked this fresh nor directional since Henri Samuel used it to decorate Louise de Vilmorin’s famous drawing room at Verrière.
Arara and El Progresso, Colombia
The true spirit of folk art declares a community’s existence in the world, and this is strongly represented by the Muñecos de la Pelazón, the expressively crafted figures of hand carved balsa wood and yanchama bark cloth made by the indigenous Tikuna people in the rainforests of Arara, Colombia. Participants in the actual ancient ceremony of the Pelazón, through which girls entering puberty are introduced to adult society, wear these fanciful garments with their geometric patterns and masks of leopards, toucan and monkeys. Antonia Ramos Bautista guides the design of these contemporary “dolls,” and with her entrepreneurial instinct, has fostered awareness of this phenomenal cultural tradition, whilst helping to generate income to improve the communities’ quality of life.
Aboubakar Fofana, Mali
One falls under the spell of seduction upon entering the tented booth of the great indigo master dyer, Aboubakar Fofana. In West Africa, indigo textiles denote respect and status in those who where them, and the statuesque Fofana suggests “each shade is a different emotion.” Reviving the ancient tradition of indigo dying in Mali, Fofana farms his crops of Indigofera arrecta and Philenoptera cyanescens and hand dyes his spun cotton, hand woven into the most sophisticated textiles and crafted into the most refined tradtional clothes and home goods— all highly desirable. “My products have two sides: traditional and modern. Tradition is one thing, but as an artist I have to give a contemporary language to that and give people a product they can recognize themselves.”
Blaise Cayol, France
Few crafts require such a high level of skill as basketmaking, and the works of Blaise Cayol, with their honesty and simplicity reflect extraordinary technique and mastery. Inspired to create humble, everyday objects, Blaise has revived a tradition that died out after the Second World War, with baskets in the preindustrial period used for everything— harvesting, storage, transporting… since ancient times. In Tavel, in Southwestern France, baskets he creates from home grown willow with additions of chestnut and hazelnut, become bold aesthetic expressions of natural beauty. One imagines Bunny Mellon might have taken a road trip to collect many of these prized baskets.
IOWEYOU, India
Kavita Parmar is a self described entrepreneur, optimist, heritage textile specialist, idealist and is obsessed with Traditional Madras. Working in India with hundreds of master weavers of this unique fabric created in the 16th century, she has sought to preserve its innate characteristics — handwoven, hand dyed, with the character of subtle beauty achieved via handwashing. Self taught, Kavita has fashioned this authentic fabric into well cut clothing, accessories and homegoods, with a lot of panache.
IOWEYOU is a transparency and traceability platform connecting the makers to the wearers: each garment has a QR code tracing the entire journey of a piece, because Kavita believes, “human beings have a deeper connection to human stories.”
Sanjar Nazarov, Uzbekistan
Imagine the boiled down essence of pomegranates, apricot peels, rose petals, saffron, nutshells and madder root coloring some of the loveliest suzanis available. It is to be transported to the Silk Road city of Bukhara, and the wonders of the rich embroideries of Sanjar Nazarov, the third generation master embroiderer working there with his family workshop. Suzani is the Farsi word for embroidery, and its creation begins with the birth of a baby girl, to be enjoyed later on her marriage bed. These splendid suzani pillows and bed covering and marvelous coats and accessories reflect design motifs of the Lakai people of Uzbekistan. One can sense how passionate Iris Appel would have felt about these.
Chipuelo Oriente, Colombia
Resonating with a stark elegance, the pottery of Chipuelo Oriente has been crafted for everyday use. Simple crockery forms are rendered into objects of desire by their soulful lustrous patina, the result of a unique burnishing process with agate stones. In the Tolima department of Colombia, 130 artisans are devoted to this craft which has been passed down through generations for over 300 years. Unique river clay is mixed with sand and handbuilt using a pinch pot and hand molding method— no tools! High fired in wood burning ovens, the burnished pieces are then smoked with dung cakes, branches and leaves to achieve the stunning black finish.
Kamiko / AMU, Japan
Maki Aizawa and her mother, Tsuyo Onodera, founded Kamiko, a women’s collective of licensed kimono makers in Tohoku. The pair have manifested their important vision of revitalizing the art of kimono making and hand stitching, by rebuilding and refashioning antique kimonos for modern times, and by employing collage and zero waste techniques, and recycled kimono silks. Their exquisite kimonos compete for attention with the very coolest haori and hanten— jackets and coats hand made in denim and raw cottons.
Fayne and Caleb Robinson, and Tutuko Wallace, New Zealand
Whakairo is the Māori art of carving, a deeply spiritual and cultural practice, and Fayne Robinson (Ngāi Tahu) is a master carver of wood and stone, who leads an inter-generational collaboration with his nephew Caleb, and emerging artist Tutuko Wallace. They presented bold jewelry in pounamu greenstone, a hard jade, fuchsite and Aotea kyanite, stones full of compassionate energy wrapped in waxed flax cords to stunning effect. One feels the power of the taonga, the carvings as record of tribal narratives and identity, as one imagines Elsa Peretti might have coveted these elegant objects.
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Peter Speliopoulos has been a member of the Board of the International Folk Art Market since 2012, and is currently an Advisory Board Member. He has also served on the Placement Committee, which curates the artists selection, in the final part of a two step jury process. He is an advisor to Cabana's Atlas of Craftsmanship.
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