Director of Free Indian Market says he will retire
Man who founded the event for artists, a former Native American studies professor, intends to spend more time with his wife
The man who started the Free Indian Market four years ago is stepping down.
But Gregory Schaaf said he’s not leaving the entity he founded. He plans to continue to serve as an adviser while the market’s board searches for a new director.
Schaaf, a retired Native American studies professor who has written books on Native art, said his reason for leaving is simple.
“It’s a love story,” he said, referring to his wife, Angie Schaaf, who asked him to retire so he could spend more time with her. “I promised her I would,” he said. Schaaf announced his plan to leave earlier this month during the Free Indian Market, held in Federal Park in downtown Santa Fe.
He said he told the artists it’s now their market to run.
“They came to see you. They didn’t come to see me,” he told them. “You are the stars. You own the show.”
He said Federal Park officials have already pledged the use of that site for next year’s market.
Schaaf started the Free Indian Art Market in 2018 to serve Native artists who weren’t invited to the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts market, particularly elders who had attended for decades but were not invited back in recent years following the controversial end to the market’s tenure policy that had granted long-term artists a booth at the show.
The Santa Fe Indian Market is a juried show. More than 600 artists took part in that event this year, part of a triple play of markets that also included the Pathways Native Arts Festival.
The free market is an invitational show, Schaaf said, in
which he and others reviewed applications and interviewed Native artists before accepting them into the event. Many came over from the Santa Fe Indian Market several years ago, he said.
In its first year, held at the Scottish Rite Temple, the event attracted 68 artists. This year’s market, held outdoors because of health concerns related to the pandemic, drew 540 artists and attracted around 25,000 visitors, Schaaf said.
All told, artists reported $4 million in sales, he said.
Preliminary estimates suggest the event, which is free for participating artists, made enough money to recoup expenses, he said.
“This show has incredible potential,” Schaaf said. “It is going to exist year after year after year, and it’s going to get better and better and better as the procedures get refined. Each booth is a family, and it will be passed down generation after generation.”