Fabulous art, food a winner for assistance dogs
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations was held in 1851 in London, featuring exhibitors from all over the world under one roof. To house this unique event, the organizers constructed the largest building in the world, covering 14 acres, and made entirely of glass and iron such as had never been seen before, glass still being in rare use. This splendid building was called the Palace of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, but nicknamed The Crystal Palace, which stuck. It was started and finished within five months and, having been intended as a temporary edifice only for the exhibition, was taken down another five months later. They didn’t realize people would take to exhibitions so well … .
Today, Santa Fe is itself a continuous series of exhibitions. And Santa Fe’s exhibitions, in the memorable words of Arthur from the 1980s movie, “don’t suck.”
A summer of exhibitions from Folk Art, Spanish and Indian markets, and various art shows and markets culminates in a serious bang with the Ethnographic Show and its offspring, the Objects of Art show — THE events in Santa Fe for serious collectors and dealers.
Where do you look for the perfect something for someone who has everything, like someone to whom you’ve been married for 40 years? Something rare and special and highly unusual that you can’t just find any place? These exhibitions are not where you go to find a nice, regular, normal gift. As you know if you’ve been and must try to imagine if you haven’t, it’s mostly all significant, investment-grade, museumquality treasures. Expect to accrue a lot of mileage on your card for this gift … it’s going to become an heirloom!
What a blessing for shoppers that before the Objects of Art doors open and the crowds close in, there was a preview event an hour before! And there was also a spacious pre-preview benefit event an hour before that, with all proceeds going to Assistance Dogs of the West!
Chef fabuloso Fernando Olea was there, hand crafting mini tacos muy sabrosos for these early birds who had the luxury of enjoying cocktails and hors d’ oeuvres, along with the opportunity to shop in leisure with first choice on the glittering goods!
Jeff Hengesbaugh had an exotic 19th-century necklace made of tiers of water buffalo teeth — put down your prosecco and try it on … divine! One lovely lady was selling vintage Agnus Deis, the stamped waxen seals made over the centuries the day after Easter from the leftover Vatican candles, with a different stamp date every year — you don’t run across these every day! (You want to keep yours in a cool place, for obvious reasons!)
About 125 people attended the pre-pre-event, raising around $15,000 for Assistance Dogs’ great program of providing loving, trained dogs to individuals with disabilities. You even saw a few of these special pooches enjoying the show.