Santa Fe has been known for its unique shopping opportunities. It still offers selections of Native American art and pieces that cannot be found anywhere else.
The world's largest Indian Market occurs in Santa Fe in August each year, but the rest of the year you still can find and purchase from an extensive selection of unique Native American art forms of all kinds such as kachina dolls, pottery, weavings, stone and wood sculptures, and jewelry.
The reason why the choices are so numerous and the items are authentic is because of the local Native American community. They still honor their art and ancestors by doing their forms with the same honesty and procedure as it has always been done.
There are nonauthentic vendors out their that will try to sell visitors items that aren't the genuine article and if that is what you are searching out you must ask some questions and look for the Indian heritage and tribal affiliation of the artist. The law states that under the Indian Arts and Crafts Act that these things must be done truthfully.
On the site www.iacb.doi.gov you can get information about this law and how it is enacted and pertains to your buying of these items.
Pottery
Pottery identifies the pueblo it is from by the style and color. The black-on-black matte pottery of San Ildefonso Pueblo is recognizable internationally, thanks to the talents of artists such as Maria Martinez. Also familiar are the brown micaceous pottery of Picuris and the geometric black and white pots of the Acoma. The Picuris Pueblo pots are characterized by their mottled appearance, which varies from glittery orange metallic to almost black, while Taos Pueblo pots are often more uniform in color.
In the late classical period, up to about 1900, a great many excellent vessels were made at The Santa Clara Pueblo was known for its smudging technique that produces a fine black surface color.
In the Santa Clara pueblo pottery are sculptural details that embellish a vessel. The rim is often rippled or fluted; the neck also may be rippled, with vertical or spiral carvings; and the mid body bulge may be sculptured....Especially distinctive is the "bear paw" sculpture, almost a Santa Clara trademark. This simple footprint motif is usually placed on jars in sets of three or more with no other decoration....Another ceramic form from Santa Clara is the wedding vase, which is a double-spouted jar with connecting handle.
Traditionally the pottery of San Juan Pueblo has been plain polished red or polished black. Also traditional is the style of applying the polished slip, in either case to only the upper two-thirds of jars, and to only a band just below the rim on the exteriors of bowls. In both cases a line of demarcation between slip and paste can be clearly seen, with a resulting pattern of color that is pleasing. The rest of the surface is well-polished bare paste: a shade of orange-tan when the slip is red, and gray when the slip has been smudged black.
The San Ildefonso Pueblo Pottery discovered in 1918 found that if an unfired polished red vessel was painted with a certain mineral paint on top of the polish and fired in a smudging fire at a relatively cool temperature the result would be a deep glossy black background with dull black decoration.
These stone-polished Tesuque Pueblo pottery is different from those of San Ildefonso by having flatter bases, more ripple surfaces, occasional crystalline rocks in the paste, and a somewhat different style of design.
Until about 1830 Nambe Pueblo was a tremendous center for the manufacture of painted pottery. The style is called Nambe Polychrome.
Around 1830 the production of decorated wares at Nambe decreased sharply, and it is likely that none were make at that village thereafter....later Nambe vessels consist principally of black wares, with fluted -rimmed bowls like those of Santa Clara, micaceous-slip jars superficially resembling the vessels from Picuris, and plain tan vessels of relatively rough finish.
Weavings
In New Mexico, three great weaving traditions are represented: that of the Pueblo and Hopi, of the Navajo and of the Spanish and Hispanic people who settled the upper Rio Grande Valley.
The ancestral Pueblo people were the earliest weavers. As long as 2,000 years ago, they were weaving baskets, sandals, robes and other clothing from yucca fiber intertwined with rabbit fur and feathers.
The Navajo, arriving later in the Southwest, learned weaving from the Pueblo people, and with their special genius for textile design, made the art their own.
Spanish colonists brought the traditional European horizontal, two-shuttle loom from Mexico in the early 1600s, along with thousands of Churro sheep. Soon a weaving tradition was established in the many villages near the Rio Grande.
In over three-and-a-half centuries of weaving history in New Mexico, these three cultures have borrowed and exchanged ideas, designs and techniques. This cross-fertilization of the weaving arts is evident today in the weaving styles of contemporary Navajo and Hispanic artists.
When looking at and considering purchasing a weaving, ask about the origin of the design. There is much symbolism in the animals, colors, and design on these pieces. Many of them are telling a story and are very interesting.
Many rugs and other weavings for sale in the Santa Fe area are not from these three origins. You will see many from Mexico and you must investigate them. Many looms in Mexico are producing multitudes of traditional Indian designs. If you are looking for authenticity you need to look for the Indian heritage and tribal affiliation as I mentioned earlier. You will find many weavings from Mideastern countries as well.
Some galleries/shops in Santa Fe with authentic pottery and weavings are:
Medicine Man Gallery
200 Canyon Rd.
http://www.thesantafesite.com/MiniWeb/medicinemangallery.html
Silver Sun
656 Canyon Rd.
Shush Yaz Trading Company
1048 Paseo De Peralta
Have a great time shopping for these one of a kind items!
Eileen Richardson
