On the Santa Fe trail 18 September 2004 By JILL WORRALL While deep in the deserts of Uzbekistan earlier this year, travel writer Jill Worrall was invited by a fellow traveller to attend a very special market in Santa Fe in the United States. This New Mexican town of sensuous adobe architecture is an extraordinary blend of Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures and, if that wasn't enough, Santa Fe had invited some of the world's best craftspeople over for a weekend to sell their wares.

There is at least $US40,000 of high fashion clothing in the back of the left-hand-drive silver 4WD Ford and a wobbly pile of Saudi Arabian woven baskets for good measure. And I'm at the wheel – more than 20 years on from the last time I drove on the "wrong" side of the road. The Ford is so big I'd almost needed a ladder to climb into the driver's seat, and now I can't work out how to put the monster into drive. And the handbrake's gone missing. My rear vision visibility is almost zero, too, thanks to the mounds of soft Uzbek silk cascading over the seat behind me. This is what comes, I think, of wanting a hands-on, behind-the-scenes insight into the staging of the world's first international folk art market. Other media representatives are wandering around the stalls, interviewing earnestly, photographing creatively. I'm on deliveries. And I wouldn't have it any other way, although it would be handy to know how to get this metal mountain on the move. A shadow suddenly blacks out the glare of the New Mexican sun. A gleaming flank of chestnut horseflesh has materialised beside my window. "Can I help you ma'am," says a voice from on high. God with a Texan twang maybe? But the voice belongs to LeRoy L Ortiz, owner and rider of Easy Does It Luke and a member of the Sheriff's Posse. The posse is a volunteer group of horseback traffic control and search and rescue workers. Today he's controlling the crowds coming to the Sante Fe International Folk Art Market in New Mexico – and rescuing me. LeRoy finds the handbrake and the automatic controls for me and I set off gingerly towards the unloading bay. Yesterday the view from here was of a rectangular courtyard linking the world's best museum of international folk art with the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture – two of the jewels in the crown of Santa Fe's Museum Hill. Today, the flagstones have all but vanished under 85 booths containing 65 master artists from 40 countries and their very best work. For the past few days people have been flying in from Lithuania and Bolivia, Niger and Nicaragua, Turkey and Thailand. Many had been sponsored by private individuals, Unesco, a group called Aid to Artisans and Santa Fe businesses (Santa Fe is one of America's leading purveyors of fine art and craft – with its legendary Canyon Road strip of art galleries it has the third highest turnover of art in the entire US, beaten only by New York and Los Angeles). I'm here as the guest of one of the sponsors, Linda Johnson. She is closely involved with the artists from Uzbekistan and Syria, the latter working with Palestinian refugees. Three of her guests are fashion designers who are presenting two shows at the market – and I have responsibility for delivering all their clothes, which include richly embroidered traditional gowns from Palestine and diaphanous silk gowns from Samarkand. The market is powered by a huge team of volunteers and plenty are on hand to help me unload the 4WD. Maybe too many – we have a minor international incident as Uzbek and Palestinian fashions mingle and prove difficult to untangle. While Heike Weber, the German-born designer from Damascus, is sorting out all the clothes ready for her team of volunteer models I help set out the rest of her stall. Near us a tiny Peruvian lady has already set up her backstrap loom under a shady length of multicoloured embroidered cloth and is at work. Round the corner from her a Lithuanian blacksmith is setting out his hand-forged metal crosses. I've abandoned my press pass altogether by now, having been caught up in the adrenaline rush that is engulfing the stalls as opening time approaches. The race is on to hang up Heike's textiles before the first visitors arrive. Heike has lived in Syria for 22 years, and was moved by the poverty of the Palestinian women, especially the widows and young girls in the camps who had no means of earning money. She began to encourage the revival of traditional needlework skills and then to apply these to high fashion garments. From small beginnings in the soul-destroying surroundings of the camps, her Anat scheme now has a workshop employing 17 women and 600 more working from home. She uses traditional Palestinian designs as her inspiration, but her fashions are very contemporary. Some of her favourite fabrics are woven from goat and camel hair. In a fine piece of irony, considering our location deep in the US, Heike points out this fabric is woven in Iraq. Some of her superb dresses carry embroidered messages in Arabic from their makers. "Take whatever you need from our blood, and then go away, it's time to leave us alone." Heike worries about the reception she and her work will receive, but Santa Fe is tolerant, outward looking, a melting pot of cultures – not your typical image of Middle America. The market opens at 9am and by 9.15am our stall is crammed with buyers. As fast as I hang up shawls, women are pulling them down and handing over fists full of US dollars. The prices seem high to me, but obviously not to the locals – one woman hands me five shawls at about $US250 each. "Is there a discount for trade?"' she asks. I have no idea, but Heike is organising her fashion show so I'm on my own. I shed the final vestiges of travel writer and talk turkey with a tough talker. "No, there isn't,"' I say, remembering Heike telling me she takes her workers to the sea once a year – some are second generation camp dwellers and have never seen the ocean before. "Well, there should be,"' my customer says. "Shall I put them back?" I ask, sweetly. She gives me the money. Hours – and several thousand dollars worth of sales –?later, I stagger out to explore the rest of the world that's come to Santa Fe. At the Moroccan stall is a man with silver speckled hair and a magnificent handlebar moustache. He's wearing white baggy trousers and a magnificent red cummerbund. He looks a little bemused as his wife's supply of woven goods is besieged by eager buyers. For some participants this is their first trip overseas, so seeing this level of spending must generate mixed emotions. Haitians Pierre Fougere Cherisme and Pierre-Richard Desrosiers are sitting in front of empty tables. So popular was their work that it all but sold out on the first day of the two-day market. These French-speaking men from the Caribbean live in one of the poorest countries in the region and exemplify what folk art is all about. Folk art, or art of the every day, is often vitally important to community wellbeing, especially in developing nations. It also encompasses traditions and skills passed down through the generations, often uses utilitarian materials and usually reflects cultural identity. Pierre-Fougere uses bead and sequin applique to create exuberant, vibrantly coloured geometric designs on papier-mache containers and wallhangings. He learned the craft as a boy and, in a village where unemployment had been rife, now provides about 40 families with an income to enable them to feed and school their children. With him is Pierre-Richard Desrosier, who works with recycled oil drums and iron bars to produce decorative and functional artwork. He also employs about 30 people, along with supporting his own immediate family of five adults and eight children. Nearby is a Tuareg or hereditary metalsmith from Niger. Tall and clad in the traditional powder blue gown and with the lower part of his face covered; Moussa Albaka is a striking sight. Moussa was born a nomad, into a family of metalsmiths who claim to be descended from ancient Jewish tribes of North Africa. These artisans use a secret language among themselves and also work as herbalists, mediators and historians. There is a huge crush of people now. The organisers hoped for about 3000 over two days – they got up to 10,000 on day one. The cosmopolitan Santa Fe residents are here in force –? dripping with tribal jewellery, draped in ethnic chic. Across the aisle and from across the world is Alina Itucama from Panama. Alina is from the Wounaan people of the Darien rainforest between Panama and Colombia. A region of rich biodiversity, it is also infested with guerrillas, insurgents, government troops and drug-runners. And from this bizarre environment has come extraordinary craft. Working fine threads from a sacred palm, Alina creates rainforest baskets. Designs are woven upside down, beginning with a tiny initial knot at the base. A 10-inch high basket can take up to a year to complete and in pride of place at Alina's stall is her butterfly and flower basket that has taken her three years to make. It has a price tag of $US15,000 Her baskets are selling too –? many of these artists have work displayed in top museums around the world. One buyer has flown in from Los Angeles (a three-hour flight) to spend just one day at the market. Alina, like many of the artists, is demonstrating her crafts at the stall. Peruvian Claudio Jimenez Quispe is an internationally renowned maker of retablos –? wooden boxes with double doors that open to reveal tiny figurines depicting religious or cultural events. Claudio is creating a tiny posy of flowers for a new retablo –? it's not much bigger than his thumbnail. He's working with a mixture of huamanga stone, yucca paste and flour. The table around him is almost bare –? 90 per cent of his stock sold out by 10am the first day of the market. Claudio won his first prize for retablos when he was just 15. There's a stage in the centre of the stalls and most popular of all the performances is a quintet of Nigerian drummers –? ebony skin startling against the vivid blue Sante Fe summer sky and the white light of the sun at its zenith. Rhythm rumbles around the stall of compatriot Chief Zacheus O Oloruntoba –? a medicine man and artist. He believes his herbal dyed cotton cord applique wallhangings have curative properties. They're certainly found in high places – the Queen has one, as does Mohammed Ali and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. So, they're out of my price range, as are South African Vincent Sithole's telephone wire baskets and animal figures. This craft probably originated with Zulu night watchmen who began to weave wire around sticks to pass the time. Today it's so popular the craftsmen buy their wire direct from the manufacturers in order to meet demand. I stumble on Maya Weavers' stall, where prices are kinder to Kiwi dollars. The weaving, some of it silk, is the work of about 100 women in one of the poorest parts of Guatemala. A US nun who had worked in the country for 20 years discovered a group of backstrap weavers who were ready to abandon their traditional craft because they couldn't afford to market it. The sister found markets in the US and now the community owns eight floor looms. No one in the community has to leave to work in the poorly paid and dangerous coffee plantation and for the first time children are reaching high school level education. As the market closes, a Swedish woodcarver is talking techniques with a craftsman from Mexico and the Lithuanians are debating buying a carpet from a Berber-speaking Moroccan. At Linda's stall of Middle Eastern treasures an elderly hippy is also considering buying a rug. She looks like she hardly has two lentils to rub together but she's dragged two rugs out into the sun and takes turns sitting cross-legged on each. Apparently the rugs give off equally good vibes because she buys both. It's a classic Santa Fe moment. BACK TO TOP