Illustrated Daily; 5139; New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair

We have so many quality artists and craftsmen in the world, and we have a lot of more than the state, and the public has taken to them. If you provide the public with quality work, it's bound to boom. The New Mexico Arts and Craftsphere is a very festive event. I mean, it is what's the best entertainment and cultural value in the state as far as I'm concerned. The Illustrated Daylight, Managing Editor, Hal Roads.

Hello! One of the more delightful early summer rights in the land of Enchantment is the annual New Mexico Arts and Craftsphere. Come June 28th this year, artists and craftsmen from throughout the state will descend upon the state fairgrounds in Albuquerque, where if tradition holds, thousands of New Mexicans will flock to see for themselves what has become apparent in recent years. Arts and Crafts in New Mexico is big business, and so is the Arts and Craftsphere. Indeed, it is now virtually a year-round operation preparing for the annual June event. If the annual New Mexico Arts and Craftsphere has a centerpiece, it is clearly the traditional commemorative poster which both celebrates and symbolizes the event. And over the years, some of New Mexico's finest artists have been selected for the coveted honor following a tough juried selection process.

Postur entries were accepted at Juring, the same way that artwork was submitted for Juring and the Board of Directors made a decision. Six years ago, we decided to find an innovative way to promote the fair and also to bring some money into the fair, some way that was tasteful. And we looked around and decided that a poster would be a good idea. This year, we had an open competition, we sent perspectives out over 800 across the state, and we had 40 plus entries from which we were able to weave down to a selection of five and then a selection of one. This time out, Nancy Young, whose landscape, ancient corbars, was selected over scores of her competitors. Nancy, we know a jury of 28 selected your print ancient corridors over the works of a lot of other folk, but you had to make the first selection. Why did you choose ancient corridors rather than any number of the

other works that you produce? Part of the reason was the Arts and Craftsphere itself. The Arts and Craftsphere goes, we have a lot of old crafts in it that are very ancient crafts, like some of the wood carvings. There is a guitar carvers that have been in it, and then we go to the very modern type of abstract art and such. And in this poster, it goes from the Ageless Cliffs and then into the Petroglyphs, which are the Anasazik, the ones who came before, and these are real petroglyphs from various sketches and drawings that I have seen on the walls, actual walls, and used them. And then it goes into the printing process, which is fairly recent, and then the handmade paper, which is just really beginning to come into its own. So it sort of covered the whole area of what the Arts and Craftsphere does, as well as the colors and the design to me epitomized in New Mexico, the warm feelings, the canyons, the cliffs, the colors, it all was in New

Mexico to me. Where are the ancient corridors? These particular ones are mainly in my head. They're a composite of a lot of the canyons that you see through out of the state, a lot of them on the, particularly the west side of the state. The coloring is very indicative of that part of the state. Do you have a lot of pictures that you carry around in your head that are composites of? Definitely. Definitely. Almost all my work is a composite. It's never a specific place, per se. I understand you make your own paper. Is that true? And if so, why do you make your own paper? I do make a lot of my own paper. I like the way that the paper takes the inks. I like the colors and the texture and the paper. It feels a lot more like the country than just using an etching paper. You just have a much warmer feeling. What do you mean it feels like the country? Just the textures of most of the blot papers are smooth. You get more texture, more depth that takes the ink very nicely. Just it has more of a warmth. So do you have to make calculations about color and inks and the like that you

would not have to make when you use your own paper as in contrast to a commercially acquired paper? Using handmade paper is very different. The inks on it act differently and you don't know exactly what the colors are until after you've printed it. Because if you printed on a gray paper, something may pop out. If you printed on a, on a warm sunset paper like the Arts and Craftsfare poster was, the background becomes more subtle. So you have to just look at it to see what's going to happen. All right, the transition from ancient corridors on your own paper to ancient corridors on poster paper. You pleased with the result? I think it worked very well. Part of it was the background color which gave it more warmth and as though the piece itself were floated and matted, leaving the decal edges on it, it helped a lot. I felt it. They did a very good job. When an artist undertakes to commit a piece of their work, as it were to somebody else's hands and somebody else's paper, especially an artist who likes to work with their own paper, you must have some sweaty palms. You worry a lot. But the Arts and Craftsfare people are very easy to work

with and they called me in on a lot of the problems and such and it worked very well. I was very pleased. We've had a commemorative poster for six years now. This is our seventh. When we get the original artwork, it's not in a poster form. So we take it to our graphic artist and she designs the graphics like the background, whether it should be lighter, dark, what color it should be and the lettering to decide how it will look as a finished product. Once the decisions were made, the original artwork went to our color separator who made up some color negatives and those went to the printer. Printing the poster was really a fascinating process. Starline Press, who printed the poster, presented us with other choices. For example, Nancy's poster has a lot of subtle colors in it and they had special links in order to pick up those colors.

We also had to choose between a variety of papers. One had a matte finish, one had a glossy finish. Starline chose to run our poster on a very sophisticated Heidelberg press which laid down all five colors of the poster at once. They controlled the machine with a computer and punched all the buttons and that controlled the amount of ink, the various colors of

ink that went into it. But even with that, there were many trial runs before we could come up with the right color combinations and with a poster that was as close as possible to the original. Starline Press, who printed the poster was as close as possible to the original. After Starline Ram, the poster on both papers, we wound up choosing the matte because its

effect was more like Nancy's handmade paper. And we have a poster to highlight our youth exhibit. Ambrishing tact is cow cat by Tim Minick is this year's children's poster. It went through much the same process as our commemorative poster but it was printed by fine line and it was printed on a one color press. That means that they laid down each of the colors separately so that the colors built up and layered in. And we didn't see the final product until the final color was laid down. It was really fun watching

the image develop. David Wingard, President of the New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair, and Sandy Ginsburg, Arts and Crafts Fair Manager. Sandy, the Arts and Crafts Fair began now over two decades ago down in Albuquerque's Old Town as a pleasant little event that everybody, I'm sure enjoyed. But now, low these many years later, you have this huge operation on your hand. I mean, how does all take place? Well, in 1962, some Old Town merchants got together and decided to put on an arts and crafts fair. And some members from the community participated. It was such a success that the following year, the junior league was asked to take it over and they ran it for three years after that. But by then, it was big enough that it was handed back to the community

and they've had it ever since. And in 1969, the fair moved out through Old Town and moved up to the state fairgrounds where it's been ever since. I mean, do you see it? Do you see a destination? Are you headed for something much larger? I mean, you can't get much bigger than this, can you? No, we're limited by the size of the fairgrounds. We have two hundred and ten booths and as many artists as we can feel, the way of two hundred and forty-four artists this year. Some collaborators, some people who are willing to share a booth. Well, David, I suppose you could think Megala Maniacal about this. Governor Anaya wants to move the fairgrounds and is conceivable. We will get a larger state fairgrounds as a consequence. Perhaps the size will be the limit. Well, we look at the size of our fair as optimum right now. We can ensure quality within our show by keeping the number of booths to two hundred and ten. This year, we had over six hundred people that tried to get into our fair. So, roughly one-third of the people who tried to get in our in the fair and that ensures us a quality show from your year.

Who decides who gets in, who doesn't get in? Well, that's all done through a juring process. Juring process is conducted every February. There are five members of each jury and there are three juries. So, there are total of fifteen jurors that go through the selection process. We have one jury for the art side and we have two juries for the craft side. These people are selected, the jurors are selected by our arts and crafts representatives and collaboration with our standards chairman and they are the people that ensure the quality of the fair. Is that how you become very organized over the years? When do you start actually planning an arts and crafts fair? When does it all begin? Well, officially it begins July 1st, the day after the last fair closes. The fair is always the last weekend in June and so we begin early because there are a lot of printed material,

a lot of things like the poster that need to be organized early enough so that we get them out. We have a deadline of juring if we can to have the poster printed and have a lot of our printed material available. It's much energy. You guys put into this. I mean, when one's over isn't it difficult to gear up for another? Well, I think we become past manager and president on the board so we turn the reins over to people who are fresh. Oh, so this is not becoming an empire of any given group of individual. That's absolutely correct. We serve one year in an elect capacity and then we serve one year as president or manager and then we serve a third year as president or past manager and an advisory capacity. So although we have worked in various capacities with the fair for many years, you actually serve in the upper echelons for three years. You guys used to run in the red, I know at the end, but now you come out of it in the black. What kind of a budget does it take to pull this off? Well, this year we're running on about

a hundred and fifteen thousand dollar budget, which sounds like an awful lot and it is and that's with all volunteer help. We have major expenses in renting of the fairgrounds in building, constructing and putting up of the booze in the electrical, in the audio, in security, parking, and Acre comes every year to ensure that we have health care for anyone who might need it. We increased our budget by twenty-five thousand dollars, which are just through the paid advertising campaign. So that's, that's almost... Well, how did that sit with your board? Was that thought to be the proper way to go? Our board of directors decided it was time for change. Hopefully, we will increase our gate. Last year we had approximately twenty-five thousand people attend the fair. This year we're hoping for maybe thirty-five thousand people and we think that the exposure that we need is best suited through a paid advertising campaign. So we've needed to begin a program and this year we've allotted twenty-five thousand dollars for paid advertising and people throughout the state should be seeing

that soon on TV, hearing it on the radio and seeing it in the newspapers as well as some billboard. You were talking about, you were talking about the volunteers that helped bring this off and you get them into hundreds. Where did they come from? Well, initially they came for friends talking to friends and that still happens, but now it's going to a pool of over four hundred and we can use more all the time. So we'd love to have anybody who would like to be at the fair and working with us, contact our fair office. What do they do? They work anywhere from cashiers to ticket takers, they can work in our keynote exhibit, they work at the drawing booth, they can work in the youth exhibit. There's always jobs. They get some community involvement and I'm sure that makes them feel good. Plus, the New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair is a very festive event. I mean, it is, well, it's the best entertainment and cultural value in the state as far as I'm concerned and these people get to take part in the festive activities of the fair. It's really a lot of fun to do. The folks who don't get juried into the system are not permitted to show their

arts or their crafts at the fair. I would think they would feel badly. Well, they know that the competition is very, very severe and very stiff to get into our show. With 600 people trying to get in and this year we have 244 exhibitors, that leaves quite a few who do not get in. But they realize that our show is a standard for quality in the state, in fact, in the country. And I think what it does is it provides them some incentive to submit even better work the following years. Is it true you're one of the biggest in the country? Yes, we're reportedly the third largest in the country. And I just like to add to Dave's answer, we have people sitting on our board that have tried many times to get in and didn't make it. So it pays to keep trying. Every year there's a new jury and you never know what happened in the last year it doesn't transfer to the next year. What do you mean you have people

sitting on your board who never got in? The first few times they tried. Do they have to have been the arts and crafts representatives on the board have to have been able to have participated in the fair to serve on the board. Yes, they're elected by their peers from those who are in who are exhibiting this year. Dave, it's something new at the fair this year, arts and crafts grants program. What's that about? How that came that to be? Well, how it came about to be because the New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair has had a really a long history of artistic success, but we have struggled for financial stability. And because of the leadership of the previous board of directors and because of the quality of the work shown by our exhibitors and the work and time donated by the literally hundreds and thousands of volunteers for the years, we've been able to initiate a program this year of giving funds back to the arts community. We call it a redistribution of funds to the arts community. And this takes the form of two

two grants programs. We have a scholarship program. This scholarships are for graduate students at the University of New Mexico in what we call studio arts. We selected graduate students because they've made a commitment to art. We also have a general fund and the general fund supports individuals and organizations in the state of New Mexico for activities of artistic excellence. And this year we were fortunate enough to provide money to six actually three individuals and three organizations in the state to help them in support of their programs. That's really impressive. My impression is that around the country your counterparts for the most part don't run into black ever. Is that safe to say? I think that would probably be safe to say for most arts and crafts. Why is it work here and not elsewhere? Well, I think it's because of the quality of of exhibit that we have plus the entertainment value that we provide and that brings people

to our fair. You're really conscious of the entertainment value of the arts and crafts fair, aren't you? I am very much. I think that it's along with the with the exhibits it's the entertainment that brings the people to the fair. Are you conscious of that in the process of planning? Very definitely. We have so many facets to the fair. We do have continual entertainment, adult entertainment, and youth entertainment. And we have demonstrations by the artists for both youth and for adults. We have a keynote exhibit. So we're really multifaceted. It's very extraordinary. The Mexico artists have really gotten their start of the arts and crafts fair. That's true. In fact, Helen Harden who was did our poster two years ago got her start with the New Mexico Arts and crafts for many years ago. She showed early in the fair's history and she showed fairly frequently. And there are others, probably, the public authority. Her mother was at once an exhibitor in the fair. Yeah, but she was well along with the time she exhibited in that

fair. Well, she wasn't a youngster, but she still considered the fair of a rank that she would like to be part of. Why does New Mexico have such a booming arts and crafts industry? Have any sense of that, David? Well, I think it's because we have so many quality artists and craftsmen within the state. And the public has taken to them. If you provide the public with quality work, it's bound to boom. That's my impression of it. Sandy, what extent do exhibitors at the arts and crafts fair become as it were institutions, annual institutions? We have one person who has been in the fair 19 years. On the other hand, we have 80 new first-time exhibitors this year. We're very excited about that. There'll be fresh faces, fresh work for the public to view. And it'll be a forum for these artists to just to show their works that they wouldn't have otherwise. The thing I like about the arts and crafts fair quite frankly is when I go there, it is indeed quite as spectacle. I mean, the people are just in awe of what they're doing. They're having a good time. I like the crowds of it all. Yeah, it's the best people watching show in town. I guarantee you

that. Where do you watch it? Where do I watch it? Well, depending upon my function at the fair, this year I'll probably be running all over the fair. It's fun to watch it from no matter where. You can watch it from the beer garden. Actually, you can just sit down anywhere and watch the people go by. What does it mean to be a patron of the arts and crafts fair? Sandy? We established a patron's program a few years ago and we asked for contributions to support arts and crafts in New Mexico. And we have a scale that runs from $25 to $1,000, which would make one of a lifetime patron. And we have some lifetime patrons. And as a reward for becoming a patron, we have a variety of things like Preview Nighttickets and posters that we can issue as a thank you. David, what is Preview Nightt? Well, we have a Preview Nightt, or sometimes it's referred to as a Fiesta Night. And it takes place the Thursday evening prior to when the fair is open to the general

public. This year it's the 27th of June. We sell a limited number of tickets this year that price is $7.5. This $7.5 allows you to get into the fair and get a preview, so to speak, of all the work that it's exhibited at the fair. In addition to getting in before everyone else, we also serve sort of a light meal that night. And we have wine and soft drinks for the people who attend that night too. We have entertainment on Thursday night also, so it's truly a festive evening. Did you have a master plan at some time? It was like you had a blueprint and this is what I wanted to do, or this is what we want to do. Or did you sort of build? I think it just built and kept evolving. As the fair got bigger, we saw we had additional needs and we tried to find ways to build them. Should the arson crafts fair be moved around the state, do you think? Well, that's a good question. I think it probably serves the state as well as possible in Albuquerque.

Albuquerque is a concentration of the populace of New Mexico. Plus, it's centrally allocated and it's fairly easy for the surrounding communities for people from them to come to Albuquerque too, or so. I think it suits New Mexico very well right here at Albuquerque. The artists and the craftsmen who sell their wares at the fair, do they make money, really? Yes, some of them say that it's the best show they have all year. So they feel very satisfied in their eager to redo the show with the following year. You ever have an exhibitor, artist, perhaps. Just throw a temper tantrum on you because they don't like to set up the layout, the way they have to display their wares. Well, if they don't like the way they have displayed their wares, that's really their own fault. We provide them with enough literature prior to the fair to let them know exactly what the booth construction is like, how much space they're going to have available. And occasionally when we're setting up on Tuesday or Wednesday prior to the fair, an exhibitor may have a question but I

have yet to run into one who would throw a tantrum or who does not like the way our booths are set up. We do have a status chairman and the arts and crafts representatives on our board that go around and make sure that the quality of work that it's in the booths are the same quality that was submitted for juring and that there are no violations of the rules and regulations that we have for booths. And there have been people asked to leave the fair when they were unwilling to comply. That's, can we talk turkey here? I mean, artists, let's face it, are known to have egos. I mean, working where you folks do and putting this thing together and pulling it off with with egos, there must have been times you just wanted to say never again. Oh, I don't think you get to the point where you say never again. Our board, we have 20 people on our board of directors and 14 from what we call a lay community and 14 from the arts and crafts community. So it's a 50-50. And every now and then there are some times when there are

disagreements shall I say between the lay board and the arts and crafts board. But I think everyone's interest in the long run is to do what is best for the arts and crafts fair. So although we do have some difficulties at times, issues are resolved and are resolved in the best interest of the fair. All right, David. I know now why the fair is a success. Each of you are obviously born to diplomacy. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I'm Hal Rhodes. Good night.