New Spanish Market director has deep ties, to appreciation for Santa Fe's history
Newest director of Traditional Spanish Market has deep ties, appreciation of Santa Fe’s history
On the job for just a week as the new director of the Traditional Spanish Market, longtime art conservator and former city of Santa Fe historic preservation officer David Rasch is already connecting with artists who help make it happen.
After years of focusing on artwork and buildings, Rasch, 58, said he can now “focus on the individuals.”
“I think that is so exciting,” he said.
“The artists are pretty happy that I am back,” added Rasch, who worked for six years with the Spanish Colonial Arts Society, which presents the Traditional Spanish Market each summer in Santa Fe and a winter market in Albuquerque. He was involved with the society’s development of the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art on Museum Hill and worked as a conservator and collections manager at the museum from 1999 to 2003.
His first task as market director, Rasch said, is to help the artists refine — and, perhaps, redefine — the guidelines on the quality and style of works accepted into the nearly 70-year-old juried show.
“I want to help them solidify their guidelines,” he said, which determine the subject matter, materials and techniques that are allowed. While tradition is paramount at Spanish Market, there must be room for innovation, Rasch said: “Living traditions evolve.”
Rasch, who began the job Monday, takes over following the abrupt departure in August of former Director Catherine Owens, a few weeks after a July event that some said
drew fewer visitors than usual to the Santa Fe Plaza.
Owens, who had spent just five months in the position, declined to comment on her departure at the time.
Josef Díaz, chief curator of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society, would only say the organization and Owens had “parted ways.”
At the time, he said he couldn’t comment on whether sales were down because the numbers hadn’t yet been tallied, but he called this year’s Spanish Market a success for the roughly 160 artists.
On its website, the Spanish Colonial Arts Society bills the event as featuring over 250 artists.
Rasch didn’t provide sales figures for the July market and said he did not know why visitor numbers — or vendors numbers — might have been down. “I haven’t looked at that yet,” he said.
“If there is anyone who is unhappy with the market, I intend to turn that around,” Rasch said. He urged anyone who had complaints or concerns to speak with him directly.
An eclectic collector and artist in his own right, Rasch was drawn to art at an early age growing up in Connecticut.
“I still remember some pencil drawings I made in the fifth grade when I was 10 years old,” he said.
Early in his art career, he made a shift — partly out of practicality. After realizing the difficulties of making a living as an artist, he decided to study art history. “But what do you do with an art history degree?” he remembered asking himself.
He eventually segued into art preservation, triple-majoring in chemistry, art history and studio arts at the University of Southern California and earning a master’s degree in art conservation.
He came to New Mexico in 1992 to work for the Museum of New Mexico as an art conservator.
Several years later, he was contacted by Spanish Colonial Arts Society to look at a house on Museum Hill, built by wellknown architect John Gaw Meem, as a possible site for a new Spanish arts museum.
“I was one of the first people to look at this site,” Rasch said. And he was there for the opening of the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art in 2004.
That year, Rasch shifted from work preserving valuable are collections to helping protect some 6,000 historic buildings in Santa Fe as the city’s historic preservation officer. He spent 15 years in that position.
Rasch’s personal art collections include Acoma pottery, Navajo and Hispanic weavings from contemporary artists and the etchings of 20th-century printmaker and painter George Elbert Burr. “That’s my favorite,” he said.
Rasch has acquired 11 of a 16-print series called Mountain Moods that Burr completed in 1916. He’s been seeking the remaining prints at auctions, galleries and on eBay.
“I only have five more to find,” he said. “I have been searching for years.”