The Last New Mexico Arts & Crafts Fair
June 17, 2018 10:17 Book stuff | Food for Thought
The 57th and Final NM Arts & Crafts Show Coming — Make sure you get there before it closes!
New Mexico Arts & Crafts Fair
LPD Press/Rio Grande Books has a large booth with Artemesia Publishing at the very last New Mexico Arts & Crafts Fair at the Fairgrounds (Expo) next weekend – June 22 – 24. We both will have major buys of new and recent releases. It will be nice to be a part of the Fair that has been a part of Albuquerque for 57 years. They are stopping after this Fair because of money and probably lack of leadership in the wings.
They are not the first, major show to close the tent. This is the new reality of what is happening. There was a recent article in the Albuquerque Journal that the younger generations don’t collect. They don’t collect art either. In fact, they don’t spend money on things that were a norm like cars, houses, clothes, books, newspapers, and other stuff but not phones and electronic devices. It is important to be isolated! They don’t go to malls and stores either. Is this a pattern?
This should be a wake-up call for other shows and events all over the country that things are changing. Very recently, when the Arts & Crafts Fair opened, each day, there was a huge line waiting to get in. Even if people didn’t buy they wanted to see and talk with artists. No more. We hope it will be different this year for people to say good-bye to artists and Fair volunteers. These people are a part of the community and people we know.
I want to thank Trish and Ron Behrmann and their many volunteers who made our life more interesting and colorful by making sure we had the New Mexico Arts & Crafts Fair. Come by next weekend and visit! It is sad. I don’t do this kind of change well.
If you come this weekend:
- Rosemary Zibart is signing her books at 2pm Friday
- Ross Van Dusen is signing his kids books Sunday at noon
- Francelle Alexander is signing her best sellers North Valley books (2) on Sunday at 1pm,
Barbe Awalt