Event Location
Desert Diamond Casino
1100 W. Pima Mine Rd.
(south of Tucson on I-19)

 

Learn more about Desert Diamond Casino at:
www.desertdiamondcasino.com

Event Times
Saturday, March 27 - 10am-5pm
Sunday, March 28 - 10am-4pm

Admission Fee
$6.00 for Adults (children 10 and under get in FREE)

 

More information
  www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/events/swiaf/

 

2010 Southwest Indian Art Fair Benefit is March 27, 28 at Desert Diamond Casino
Two-day event will feature 100 artist and, traditional and contemporary music

Top Native American artists from Arizona, throughout the Southwest and nation will flock to Tucson March 27 and 28 to showcase their authentic, handcrafted works of art for the 2010 Southwest Indian Art Fair Benefit.

The two-day show and sale will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 27 and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 28 at the Desert Diamond Casino, at Interstate 19 and Pima Mine Road.

 

The Arizona State Museum (ASM) has partnered with the Southern Arizona Arts and Cultural Alliance (SAACA) to present this year’s Indian art fair. For 16 years, the art fair has offered arts, crafts, performances, demonstrations and a multitude of culturally relevant educational experiences to thousands of visitors.

 

Examples of the many authentic artworks available at this event include: pottery, Hopi kachina dolls, paintings, jewelry, baskets, rugs, blankets and much more. Serious collectors, casual buyers, and first-time visitors alike find much to experience, learn and enjoy.

 

The Indian art fair also will feature performances by a number of traditional and contemporary musicians.

 

Proceeds from the 2010 Southwest Indian Art Fair Benefit will help sustain the event in the years to come.

The jury-selected artists will also have a chance to win a grand cash prize of $2,500, from the Arizona State Museum, to award the best in show artwork from the event. This cash pot remains the largest of its kind in the region and has attracted some of the areas most talented Native artists.

 

Charlene Laughing, Navajo Weaver
Featured Artist at Arizona State Museum’s Southwest Indian Art Fair Benefit

 

With such a happy name, how could Navajo weaver Charlene Laughing be anything but warm and ebullient? And so she is. Humble, too. Charlene is from the Laughing family of Crystal, New Mexico. She and her relatives are creative weavers who produce traditional and contemporary Navajo rugs and wall hangings in natural and vegetal colored wool.

 

Charlene Laughing has been weaving in the Navajo tradition since she was a little girl. At age 8, she sold her first piece to a trading post in Crystal, NM, where she grew up. It took her all summer to complete, and she used the money to buy shoes and clothes for school.

 

Her mother taught her the patient art of weaving. While many weavers today use commercially dyed wool for their works, Charlene has joined the trend for “slow cooking.” Simmering her wool yarns gently, she uses onion skins for yellows, coffees and teas for browns.

 

Completing some pieces can take months. Purchasing commercial yarns allows her time to focus on custom dyeing and hand weaving her intricate patterns.

 

Some designs are based on the borderless geometric banded rugs that weavers developed in her community of Crystal during the mid-twentieth century. 0In other textiles, she experiments with an innovative patchwork of different motifs. And in still others, she returns to designs on blankets and serapes of the nineteenth century and adapts them for her twenty-first century buyers.

 

In the 32 years she’s spent honing her craft Charlene Laughing has sold works to people throughout the country and the world, to such far-flung places as Germany and Japan.

 

Charlene was the recipient of the 2009 Southwest Indian Art Fair’s Excellence in Two Dimensional Art award. She is represented by Chimayo Trading and Mercantile, Chimayo, New Mexico.

 

Come meet Charlene and 100 other Native American artists slated to be on hand to sell their traditional wares at Arizona State Museum’s Southwest Indian Art Fair Benefit.

 

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2010 Southwest Indian Art Fair Benefit
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 27 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 28
Where: Desert Diamond Casino, Interstate 19 and Pima Mine Road
Cost: $6 for adults (children 10 and under get in free)
Online: www.southernazfestivals.org; www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/events/swiaf/
Phone: (520) 797-3959