There’s always something exciting happening at the Museum of International Folk Art! Join us for our many programs listed below.

Conversations with Icons, Christine Mather
December 6, 202310:00 AM - 12:00 PM
SOLD OUT!
Friends of Folk Art present Conversations: Intimate Salons with Folk Art Makers, Collectors & Icons with Christine Mather, Folk Art historian, author, purveyor and educator.
Please join us on Wednesday, December 6, 2023, from 10 a.m. to noon to spend time with art historian and author Christine Mather. She has lived in Santa Fe since 1975 and her expertise on Spanish Colonial art history and the Southwest as well as her easy and fun writing style have made her books some of the best-selling about Santa Fe and its unique style. The wife of Davis Mather, she has also immersed herself in the folk arts of Mexico, New Mexico, and Native America. The emphasis of this talk will be on her journey with folk art: from collector, author, purveyor to educator.
This event is for FOFA members ONLY. FOFA members will receive an invitation by email which will include all the details and the price. A single membership allows access to one ticket. A dual membership allows for two tickets.
For information on joining FOFA, a membership group of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, please click here.
For questions, please email friendsoffolkart@gmail.com
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National premiere screening of the PBS award-winning series
December 9, 20232:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Join us for the screening of MINIATURES and a discussion with individuals interviewed in the episode: Laura Addison, Museum of International Folk Art; Stuart Ashman, Artes de Cuba Gallery; Nadia Hamid, International Folk Art Market; Thomas Leech, retired, New Mexico History Museum; and Maureen Russell, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. Patricia Bischetti, executive producer and director of “Craft in America,” will facilitate the panel discussion.
To request ASL Interpretation for this event, contact Patricia Sigala by December 4th at: patricia.sigala@dca.nm.gov
MINIATURES explores the world of tiny objects and the artists who make them. From folk art to marionettes to tiny furniture, the artists of MINIATURES reveal what motivates them to work at a scale that demands a masterful attention to detail.
New Mexico artists and organizations figure prominently in MINIATURES, which includes segments on Alexander Girard’s spectacular invented world housed in the Museum of International Folk Art’s Girard Wing; beloved New Mexico artist Gustave Baumann’s marionettes from the collection of the New Mexico Museum of Art; and International Folk Art Market artists who work at a diminutive scale, including Cuban artist Leandro Gómez Quintero, who creates small-scale, painstakingly detailed re-creations of vehicles using found materials.
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Winter Glow Holiday Stroll on Museum Hill
December 15, 20234:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Join us for a delightful winter celebration at the Museum of International Folk and Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.
Admission to both museums will be free from 4 pm - 7 pm.
Join us for a short play La Pastorela Cómica at 5pm in the Vernick Auditorium.
From 4:30- 6:30 visitors can create their own holiday cards and enjoy hot cider and ginger cookies in the Atrium.
Los Pastores o Pastorelas, is a popular holiday drama that has survived the ages. Nearly every cultural group in Santa Fe has performed the holiday rite at one time or another. Community groups gather each year to perform renditions of Los Pastores. The holiday drama came to the New World in the late 16th century with the Spanish missionaries. It carried on primarily through oral tradition among families in Mexico and the American Southwest.
Audiences laugh and clap during a traditional holiday play known as a pastorela, a retelling of the birth of Christ with a comic slant complete with mariachi music and elaborate costumes. Although pastorelas depict the Christian nativity, they include the perils of a group of shepherds, the devil, and angels in a scene of satirical twist.
Directed and produced by Thelma Arguello, Grupo Coreográfico Leyendas. Dance choreography by Xóchitl Ehrl’s Ballet Folklorico de mi Pueblo and Antonina Romp’s Los Niños de Santa Fe. Staging, light, and sound by Teatro Paraguas.
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Join us for art in the atrium on Sundays with art projects, coloring sheets, and self-guided treasure hunts. Add to your explorations at MOIFA with fun collection-inspired bilingual art kits, facilitated by our fantastic MOIFA docents. Our projects are always changing with changing gallery treasure hunts for the whole family.
Dates & Themes:
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- December 3 - Make a Tin Ornament!
- December 17 - Make a Tin Ornament!
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The program time is from 10 am - 4 pm, and the program is free with museum admission. Museum admission is always free for Kids and Members, program is included with admission.
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VIRTUAL TOURS: Alexander GirardÂ's Nativities
December 18, 20239:30 AM - 10:30 AM
On this holiday virtual tour, you will be treated to folk art Nativity sets from from many countries of the world, including Italy, Peru, Poland, Germany, Mexico, Portugal, Greece and France collected by Alexander and Susan Girard. During this festive season, celebrate Girard’s love for Nativities that enthralled him as a child and that he grew to collect. MOIFA has over 200 sets from his folk art Nativity collection. The tour includes historical background, fun facts about Girard’s original Nativity installations, and a few surprises. The virtual tour is free, but please register for your preferred date at the links below and we will send you a Zoom link for the tour.
Register for Dec 18, 2023 09:30 AM Mountain Time (US and Canada) here: https://nmculture-org.zoom.us/.../tZApcOuoqzwoE9WpznfGKbn...
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Friends of Folk Art present The Parka Imperative with Suzi Jones.
January 14, 20242:00 PM - 4:00 PM
FOFA, Lecture, members only
Please join us on Sunday, January 14, 2024, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. to explore the cultural dimensions of parkas and parka making and their role in cultural survival with Suzi Jones. The title of the parka exhibition now at the Museum of International Folk Art, Ghúunayúkata -- To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka, suggests the truly significant role of parkas in Indigenous Alaska life for thousands of years. Parkas, indeed, have kept people warm, dry, and alive. Yet, in our times, when manufactured clothing is readily available from local stores and from thousands of online retailers, one might wonder why many Indigenous people of Alaska and the Far North persist in making traditional parkas from the pelts of locally harvested animals, fashioning them in regional styles, using centuries’ old designs that often require hundreds of hours of sewing by hand.
Caption: Inupiaq reindeer herders from Wales, Alaska, including Kivyearzuk, Keok, Sokweena, Tautuk and Ootenna at a Reindeer Fair, Nome, AK, c. 1900. Four of the herders are wearing spotted reindeer parkas, and the other two are dressed in muskrat parkas. Photo by Lomen Bros. From the "Public Domain Media," Frank G. Carpenter Collection, Library of Congress.
This event is for FOFA members ONLY. FOFA members will receive an invitation by email which will include all the details and the price. A single membership allows access to one ticket. A dual membership allows for two tickets.
For information on joining FOFA, a membership group of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, please click here.
For questions, please email friendsoffolkart@gmail.com
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Celebrate the Year of the Dragon and Asian New Year traditions from 1-4 pm.
FREE Admission All Day!
1:00- 4:00 pm All ages art activities
1:30 and 3:30 pm Quang Minh Temple Lion Dance Group Parade
2:00 and 3:00 pm Taiko Drumming performance by Santa Fe Wadaiko *
*Provided with ASL Interpretation
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Friends of Folk Art present Rapa Nui ÃÂ an In-Depth Tour of Easter Island with Ken Collins.
February 11, 20242:00 PM - 4:00 PM
FOFA, Lecture, members only
Please join us on Sunday, February 11, 2024, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. to explore the mysteries and theories surrounding the ruins left behind by ancestors of the Rapa Nuians. Ken Collins will focus on a visit he made to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in 2019. This involved a detailed exploration of sites on the island led by a local couple. The husband being Rapa Nuian and the wife, an American ex-pat whose grandfather was perhaps the most famous non-native archeologist to explore the ruins left behind by ancestors of the present-day native people. There are many theories about why the sites were abandoned, but increasingly, a clearer picture is coming into focus. The presentation will include natural features, the moai (statues) at various sites and the fascinating quarry where the stone was excavated and carved.
This event is for FOFA members ONLY. FOFA members will receive an invitation by email which will include all the details. A single membership allows access to one ticket. A dual membership allows for two tickets.
Caption: Rapa Ranaku Archeological Site (the abandoned quarry where the "moai" (statues) were sculpted.
For information on joining FOFA, a membership group of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, please click here.
For questions, please email friendsoffolkart@gmail.com
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Friends of Folk Art Trip To Chiapas, Mexico
March 15, 2024 through March 23, 20248:00 AM - 5:00 PM
The Friends of Folk Art invite you to join us for a magical trip to Chiapas, the southernmost state in Mexico.
The focus of this trip is to explore the wondrous state of Chiapas, understand its splendid past, honor and appreciate its present, and make a cultural connection from the past to the present. We are going to use different approaches to understand Chiapas-- from archaeology to folk art, traditional medicine, and popular religiosity. This trip experience will take you through 3000 years of history.
The trip itinerary includes: nine days and eight nights. We will visit four archaeological sites: La Venta, Palenque, Bonampak and Yaxchilan. Enjoy three indigenous villages: Zinacantan, Tenejapa, San Juan Chamula. Visit museums specializing in textiles, traditional medicine, archaeology, and history. Stay in the beautiful colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas for four days. Share with a local family at the Lacandona jungle. Tour the Sumidero Canyon by boat and enjoy a private concert with the Nandayapa family. Enjoy a gastronomical experience with the indigenous chef, Claudia Santiz, exploring the flavors of traditional regional cuisine, which differs from other parts of Mexico.
This trip is for FOFA members ONLY. FOFA members will receive an invitation by email which will include all of the details and the price. A single membership allows access to one ticket. A dual membership allows for two tickets.
For information on joining FOFA, a membership group of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, please click here.
For questions, please email friendsoffolkart@gmail.com
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DONATE FOLK ART ANYTIME TO THE FOLK ART FLEA!
April 6, 2024 through April 7, 202411:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Give your beloved folk art a new home by donating to the fabulous Folk Art Flea. Friends of Folk Art (FOFA) are accepting donations of gently used decorative art, ethnic clothing, and jewelry throughout the year. Please call the Friends of Folk Art (FOFA) information line at 505-476-1201 or send an email to friendsoffolkart@gmail.com to arrange a pick-up or delivery time. Donations are tax deductible and benefit educational programs and exhibitions at the Museum of International Folk Art.
Drive-thru donation days will be Saturday, April 6 & Sunday, April 7 and Saturday, April 20 & Sunday, April 21 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Drop off is located behind the Museum of International Folk Art. FOFA volunteers will accept your folk art and present you with a tax deductible receipt.
For questions, please email friendsoffolkart@gmail.com
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MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR DRIVE-THRU FOLK ART DONATION DAYS!
April 20, 2024 through April 21, 202411:00 AM - 2:00 PM
DONATE FOLK ART ANYTIME TO THE FOLK ART FLEA!
Give your beloved folk art a new home by donating to the fabulous Folk Art Flea. Friends of Folk Art (FOFA) are accepting donations of gently used decorative art, ethnic clothing, and jewelry throughout the year. Please call the Friends of Folk Art (FOFA) information line at 505-476-1201 or send an email to friendsoffolkart@gmail.com to arrange a pick-up or delivery time. Donations are tax deductible and benefit educational programs and exhibitions at the Museum of International Folk Art.
Drive-thru donation days will be Saturday, April 20 & Sunday, April 21 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Drop off is located behind the Museum of International Folk Art. FOFA volunteers will accept your folk art and present you with a tax deductible receipt.
For questions, please email friendsoffolkart@gmail.com
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The Fabulous Folk Art Flea is coming Saturday, May 4, 2024!
May 4, 202410:00 AM - 2:00 PM
The fabulous Folk Art Flea is back! Once again, the much beloved and anticipated Flea will be at the Rodeo Fairgrounds featuring hundreds of curated folk art pieces from collectors and artists around the world. The donated art benefits educational programs and exhibitions at the Museum of International Folk Art, through the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, a private nonprofit organization.
Admission is free and members of Friends of Folk Art (FOFA) enjoy early admission to the Flea from 9 to 10 a.m. Public admission is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
For information on joining FOFA, a membership group of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, please click here.
For questions, please email friendsoffolkart@gmail.com
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