Launched just last month, the brand spanking new ArtWalk Santa Fe is a reoccurring outdoor arts and crafts market, providing local and emerging artists with an open space to sell their products and get exposure in our community. The brainchild of Alex Streeper, and co-founded with her weekly Stitch & Bitch partner and bestie, Mara Saxer, their first ever #ArtWalkSantaFe took place on April 23th at The Trailhead and in collaboration with the fine folks at Cafecito, who provided food, ambiance and organized tango demonstrations by 8th Style Tango. Delicious food from the Tender Fire Kitchen food truck was also on hand, along with 11 artists selling anything from handcrafted jewelry to paintings, prints, plants and pots, photographs, ceramics, and screen-printed apparel.
 
While this may not fit the mold of our traditional entrepreneur tales, I love this story because ArtWalk Santa Fe was born from the need of two Santa Fe emerging artists to have other options for places to sell their wares. Alex embroiders incredible jewelry inspired by the beautiful regions and styles of Mexico, which she sells through Alita's Mexican Curios and Mara makes really cool handmade and upcycled jewelry and stained glass she sells through her biz, Bitterbrush Workshop. Both work other jobs and have had success selling at the ABQ ArtWalk and other Albuquerque pop-ups, but the schlep to ABQ is not always ideal. While Santa Fe artists have some sweet opportunities to sell at The Artisan Market or El Mercado and various other special events throughout the year, some of the barriers to entry for emerging artists like Alex and Mara include lack of street cred, booth fees that could wipe out profits, and waitlists for booths to become available. That’s where ArtWalk Santa Fe comes in.

If maxing out their vendor capacity, the number of community members who showed up for the very first event (despite the wacky weather), the happy response from diverse vendors regarding their sales, and the explosion of ArtWalk Santa Fe’s social media following on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in less than 2 months is any indication, this is truly filling a need for Santa Fe and its emerging artists. That’s why I can’t wait for you to join us to hear Alex and Mara share their story, including how they hope to shape their next ArtWalk in June (hint: you can expect a different location, more food and entertainment) and some of the challenges they face, like finding places to hold these events and how to monetize this so they can keep it going while also keeping the ArtWalk free or super low cost for emerging artists like themselves.

 And we’ll be gathering on the lawn at the beautiful Beer Hall at the Santa Fe Brewing Company. When you arrive at 6:30 just head on into the stunning new building to grab yourself a drink (don’t forget to tip your kick-ass bartenders well) and then meet us on the lawn, where we’ll be schmoozing until about 7 PM, when we’ll start the Story Time. They’ll be plenty of time for your questions and by about 8 PM we’ll thank our storytellers and get back to schmoozing. A food truck will also be on hand and you may wanna bring your own lawn chair or blanket, as we don’t wanna hog all the SFBC’s chairs and picnic tables. Thanks for being flexible and so excited to see you there!