Sandra Hale Schulman
ICT
The latest: Native arts takeover, star chef at designer gala, country music cover
ART MARKET: Film, fashion and art in Santa Fe
The Southwestern Association of Indian Arts Indian Market is coming up Aug. 15-16 with its traditional art, vendors, fashion show and gala, with a number of events surrounding the Santa Fe Plaza street fair.
The film, “Maara’yam: The Yuhaaviatam Story,” will be screening at the Get Indigenous Film Festival, among other films. The Maara’yam, or Serrano, people of Southern California, known as the Yuhaaviatam, or People of the Pine, carry a name and a story both ancient and alive. The film will screen Friday, Aug. 14, at the New Mexico History Museum Auditorium, 113 Lincoln Ave. in Santa Fe.
The official Gala & Live Auction on Saturday, Aug. 15, will feature a culinary experience curated by Chef Pyet DeSpain, the Prairie Band Potawatomi founder of Pyet’s Plate and winner of Next Level Chef. The evening’s fashion show will have new looks from award-winning designers Patricia Michaels, Taos Pueblo; and Jamie Okuma, Luiseño, Wailaki, Okinawan, and Shoshone-Bannock. Baby Opie, an eight-year-old Cree/Anishinaabe powwow dancer, singer, and drummer, will perform along with surprise Native musical performers.
A model wears designs by Jamie Okuma, Luiseño, at the 2023 Southwestern Association of Indian Arts market in Santa Fe. The 2026 Indian Market runs Aug. 15-16. Credit: Photo courtesy of SWAIA
The SWAIA Native Fashion Show on Sunday, Aug. 16, is set to start at 3 p.m. at the Santa Fe Convention Center Ballroom, with designers Himikalas Pamela Baker, Squamish/Kwakiutl/Tlingit/Haida; Jimmy Dean Horn, Chickasaw, of Running Horse Studio; Jontay Kahm, Plains Cree; Devon Tso, Diné; Desmon Pack, Plains Cree; and Stephen Paul Judd, Kiowa/Choctaw.
On Thursday, Aug. 13, the Native-led art and fashion platform HOSH is holding a children’s weaving workshop led by the Begay Sisters from 6-7 p.m., followed by an evening of storytelling and artist collaborations featuring Tony Abeyta, George Alexander, DY Begay, Jared Tso, and more. The event will conclude with a live performance from Ken Pomeroy.at El Ray Court Hotel, Santa Fe.
On Aug. 14-16, Pathways will turn Buffalo Thunder Resort just north of Santa Fe into a Native art market for the sixth year, with 350 artists indoors and outside. It will also feature live music from One Way Sky, Gary Farmer and more, a buzzy Indigenous food court, and a film festival with screenings of “Dark Winds” and “Free Leonard Peltier.”
The Blue Rain Gallery by the Railyard, which carries some of the best art year round, will feature solo exhibits this year by Jesse Littlebird and Karen Clarkson.
Artist Karen Clarkson displays her art at her booth in the 2025 Southwestern Association of Indian Arts market in Santa Fe. She is returning for the 2026 event, which runs Aug. 15-16. Credit: Photo by Sandra Hale Schulman/Special to ICT
In “The Good, the Bad and the Raven” exhibit, bestselling author Garth Stein and acclaimed glass artist Preston Singletary present a new cycle of stories and sculptures that reimagine Raven mythology for the modern age.
The exhibit follows Raven through a world of “artificial intelligence, social media obsession, fractured truth, environmental collapse, and spiritual disconnection,” according to a gallery statement. Raven encounters living statues, ghostly ancestors, kushtaka internet tricksters, and Eagle, according to the gallery.
And on Aug. 7, the film, “Road to Everywhere,” about a complicated reunion road trip, will open with a performance by film co-star Robert Mirabal, Taos Pueblo, and his band, at the Sky Cinemas Midtown. The film will continue its Santa Fe run Aug. 8-13 at the Sky Cinema Railyard.
MUSIC: Mavericks singer honored in new single
JUNO Award-winning Ojibwe singer Crystal Shawandais honoring the late singer Raul Malo with a heartfelt cover of The Mavericks classic, “Come Unto Me.”
The Mavericks, a Grammy-winning, boundary-breaking band from Miami, mashed up country, folk, Latino and Tex-Mex music over their four-decade career. Lead singer Malo, Cuban-American, died last year of cancer at age 60.
JUNO-winning Ojibwe singer Crystal Shawanda, center, is honoring the late Raul Malo of The Mavericks with a recording of the classic, “Come Unto Me.” The single will include work by Mavericks guitarist Eddie Perez, left, and is produced by her husband, Dewayne Strobel, at right. Malo died in 2025 of cancer. Credit: Photo courtesy of Crystal Shawanda
Malo was an early supporter of Shawanda, and he used to go see her in the upstairs stage at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge on Lower Broadway in Nashville, a classic country club located across the alley from the historic Ryman Theater.
Shawanda was performing a mix of pre-1975 country, blues and rock, and had built a devoted following among the songwriters, artists and producers in town.
“That support, that interest, it inspired me and encouraged me,” she says.
The single “Come Unto Me” is on all streaming platforms, and is the first single from her forthcoming album, “Homesick Indian Blues.” The song blends Spanish and English lyrics with a rousing gospel-like call-and-response chorus.
Her husband and producer, Dewayne Strobel, encouraged Shawanda to carry the song forward as a tribute, and invited Mavericks guitarist Eddie Perez, Mexican-American, to be part of the recording. Perez plays electric and acoustic guitars and backing vocals on the track, and personally walked Shawanda through the song. Perez also shared stories of his years alongside Malo.
“I was like a little kid, so nervous and excited,” she says of the session.
Malo himself once said that the song drew inspiration from the film, ”King Kong,” with the idea that even a giant can be rendered vulnerable by love.
“My husband and I have lived these words,” Shawanda says, “and I think that really shines through in this track.”
Born and raised in Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island, Shawanda signed with RCA Nashville in her early twenties and released “Dawn of a New Day” in 2008, the highest charting album by a full Canadian Indigenous country artist in the SoundScan era. In 2012, she founded New Sun Records, the first female- and Indigenous-owned record label in Canada, which she continues to run while mentoring emerging Indigenous artists.
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