Eco-conscious artists from across the nation come together for the country’s largest and oldest recycled art market, the 2023 Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival, now in its 24th year. Dedicated to showcasing art created from discarded materials, this exciting weekend-long event includes an inspiring art market, student and adult juried art exhibits, and make-and-take art activities. The 2023 Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival gives recycled objects a second life at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center, November 10 – 12, 2023.
An Art Festival With a Message
Each year the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival draws over 3,500 art-lovers from around Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the region, attracted by the art deals, family friendly art making activities, gallery-worthy exhibits, and perfect gifts. Artists successfully upcycle trash into treasure, combining recycling and innovation to show creative ways to save our resources, while making one-of-a-kind art. The event demonstrates the resourcefulness of the artists, and since many artists make their living from selling recycled art, the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival is an important economic development tool.
In addition to the Art Market, a gallery-style adult juried art exhibit, which many of the artists in the Art Market enter, takes place throughout the festival. The highlight for many, however, is the Trash Fashion & Costume Contest, taking place Friday evening. This wildly popular show never fails to surprise and entertain, as extraordinary people transform garbage to glamour and strut their stuff down the catwalk. So ubiquitous is this fashion event that many of the former participants and winners have gone on to study at prestigious fashion and design schools across the nation.
“It’s amazing what this show has grown into, from its humble beginnings in a vacant warehouse so long ago to one of the nation’s leading recycled art festivals,” says Sarah Pierpont, the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival director since 2005. “It’s a great combination of promoting recycling and illuminating the wastefulness of our society, while providing artists the opportunity to support themselves through their art.”
What You Can Expect at the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival
More than 90 artists from across New Mexico, as well as from Colorado, Illinois, California, Arizona, and elsewhere offer their original pieces for sale in the Art Market at the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival. In fact, Santa Fe boasts numerous recycled-media artists that have participated in the event since its inception. All art consists of a minimum of 75% recycled materials – everything from vintage kimonos turned into beautiful earrings to scrap metal sculptures. Other items available include collages, picture frames, clocks, furniture, rugs, and jewelry.
But these artists aren’t the only participants at the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival. Every school in Santa Fe, both public and private, is invited to participate for free in the student juried art exhibits. In keeping with the theme, the exhibits often correlate with a lesson plan noting the importance of recycling and reducing waste. The juried student art exhibition takes place in the front lobby area of the Santa Fe Community Convention Center throughout the festival.
Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival Schedule of Events
- Friday, November 10, 5 – 9 p.m. Trash Fashion Show and Costume Contest, 7 p.m.
- Saturday, November 11, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Make & Take activities all day long.
- Sunday, November 12, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Make & Take activities all day long.
Friday general admission is $5 at the door, while under 12 are free. Fashion show tickets are being sold in advance through the Lensic box office and include general admission on Friday night. Saturday and Sunday admission is free. For more information on the 2023 Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival, visit the website.
This article was posted by Jesse Williams
