Rainy Indian Market

Santa Fe has many festivals and markets and celebrations throughout the year. One of the biggest is Indian Market in August where 800 native artists from 250 tribes nationwide come to sell their work. It is the world's largest juried indigenous art show.

Teri Greaves (Kiowa / Comanche) beadwork

The plaza is filled with tents and food vendors and dancers and music and exquisite works on display. This is no flea market, it's high end art that collectors come to buy. Many artists make their entire year's earnings at Santa Fe's Indian Market.

For two years the vaunted market was either canceled or much reduced because of the pandemic. This year it is back in full force, in time to celebrate its 100th anniversary. 

By this weekend the tourists arrived. The vendors were all here. The food trucks delivered. The dancers were in regalia. The buyers and collectors came. 

And the rain came too. All day Saturday. 

Not late afternoon showers that roll in after a hot sunny day in summer, but a steady, cold -- very cold -- all day rain. No flooding, just a constant gloomy, spirit-dampening rain. What a way to quash the excitement of the one hundredth Indian Market after two years on hold. 

What a way to discourage buyers and devastate artists and vendors. But they carried on, and Sunday dawned bright and cool with no more rain. I believe the market weekend was saved.

My last post was about cutting back Colorado River water allocations because of drought. This post is about water falling from the sky, too much and too long at the wrong time. It's all so . . . weird.