Santa Fe Indian Market: SWAIA
What the Santa Fe Indian Market Is
August 13-16, 2026
The Santa Fe Indian Market is the largest and most prestigious Native art market anywhere. It has run since 1922, which makes 2026 its 104th year. Each year, nearly 1,000 juried Native artists representing over 200 Tribal Nations set up booths across the streets surrounding the Plaza — jewelry, pottery, textiles, painting, sculpture, beadwork, Navajo rugs, moccasins, and more. The one thing that matters most is - Buy directly from the artists in the booths. Alongside the booths you'll find live performances, food vendors, cultural demonstrations, film, fashion, and family programming.
**Get to the Plaza early on Saturday. The strongest work, usually the Best of Show Winners, moves in the first two hours.
2026 Santa Fe Indian Market Schedule
Thursday, August 13
Sowai & Ken Williams Jr. Exhibition — Shiprock Santa Fe* 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM. Famed Hopi jeweler Sonwai, Verma Nequatewa, will showcase her latest works alongside Arapaho/Seneca beadwork artist Ken Williams Jr. Working from her studio in Hotevilla built by her uncle Charles Loloma, Verma Nequatewa is able to work pushing the boundaries of contemporary jewelry while honoring the rich traditions of the past. Free to attend.
Benefit Reception — Dineh & Company* 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM. To kickoff SWAIA the right way — join our friends at Dineh & Company, the only Native-owned art gallery on Canyon Road, for a special reception benefiting Two Spirit & Native LGBTQ+ communities. Experience an exciting fashion show and support a great cause. Free to attend.
Manitou Galleries Indian Market Open House 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM. An evening reception of Indigenous and Western painting, sculpture, and jewelry, with many artists in attendance. Featured artists include Starr Hardridge (Muscogee), Nocona Burgess (Comanche), Isaiah Stewart (Lakota), Avis Charley (Dakota & Diné), and Ed Natiya (Diné). Free to attend.
Friday, August 14
Best of Show Ceremony & Luncheon — Santa Fe Community Convention Center* 11:30 AM – 2:00 PM, Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Winning artists receive their awards and speak about their work. Afterward, you can see every juried piece together in one room before the Market opens to the public — followed by a catered lunch in the Convention Center courtyard. This is the most intimate room of the entire weekend with all the best pieces together for one night only. Buy tickets here.
Karen Clarkson Painting Demonstration — Blue Rain Gallery* 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM. The award-winning artist works through a series of small portrait studies live in the gallery. Finished paintings are available for purchase. Free to attend.
Glass Blowing Demonstration — Blue Rain Gallery* August 14–15, 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM. Featuring renowned Tlingit glass artist Preston Singletary with Dan Friday and Spooner Marcus. Free to attend.
Saturday, August 15 — Market Day 1
Santa Fe Indian Market — historic downtown Santa Fe* 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM. Browse world-class native art and meet the artisans in-person. Free and open to the public. Get there early. The good work goes first.
Santa Fe Indian Market Gala & Live Auction — Santa Fe Community Convention Center* 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM. A courtyard cocktail hour and silent auction with native celebrities, investors, and artists alike, in a seated dinner with live auction, and a runway show featuring SWAIA Native designers. Proceeds support SWAIA's year-round artist programming and advocacy. Purchase tickets here.
Sunday, August 16 — Market Day 2
Santa Fe Indian Market — historic downtown Santa Fe 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM. Free and open to the public.
SWAIA Native Fashion Show — Santa Fe Community Convention Center* Doors open at 2:00 PM, show 3:00 PM. Established and emerging Native designers take the runway with original collections — traditional-rooted work alongside genuinely forward-looking design. It is one of the most photographed rooms in Santa Fe all year and has become a staple in Vogue. Purchase tickets here.
*Must see events
Where to Stay
Bishop's Lodge, Auberge Resorts Collection
Fifteen minutes north of the Plaza, tucked into the Tesuque foothills. Bishop's Lodge is a 317-acre luxury mountain resort featuring adobe-style casitas, the signature SkyFire restaurant, a full-service spa, and the historic Archbishop Lamy’s chapel.
Bishop's Lodge 317-acre grounds (above) and casita rooms (below).
This summer explore Basecamp — the on-site adventure hub where experience curators build the day around you: fly fishing, whitewater rafting, 4x4 excursions, Pueblo visits, stargazing, horseback riding. The signature outing is the Pinzgauer off-road adventure. You climb into a Swiss Army Pinzgauer and head out of the manicured world entirely — drifting the sandy arroyos of Diablo Canyon along the historic Chili Line and El Camino Real, climbing the pine ridgelines of Pacheco Canyon, or chasing golden hour on the sunset run. Stay here if you want the Market by day and serenity by night.
Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi
Steps off the Plaza. Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi is the best location in Santa Fe — walk out the door and you are in the Market. Renowned for its culturally rich design, it features 58 handcrafted rooms and suites equipped with traditional viga-and-latilla ceilings and gas-lit kiva fireplaces.
Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi guest accommodations.
Service is genuinely world class, and the dining is excellent enough that you may not leave the building on a slow night. Stay here if you want to be inside the action.
Dos Hermanas
A hacienda with more of a private-rental feel — gated, kitchenette, fireplace, real adobe architecture, walking distance to the Plaza. Dos Hermanas is ideal for a group traveling together or a longer stay where you want a kitchen and a courtyard of your own.
Where to Shop in Santa Fe
Dineh & Company — Canyon Road. Start here. Dineh & Company is a Diné-owned and operated gallery at 621 Canyon Road, founded by Navajo artists including Milford Calamity. Brenda and Milford are among the most generous people in this business, and their connections in the Native art world show in what hangs on the walls — jewelry, weaving, painting, beadwork. When you buy here, the money stays in Native hands.
Andrea Fisher Fine Pottery. Our favorite pottery house in Santa Fe, and the one serious collectors go to first. Deep benches of Pueblo pottery, including work by names that rarely surface on the open market.
Andrea Fisher Fine Pottery handmade Indigenous pottery.
Shiprock Santa Fe. A trading post in the historic sense, run by a fifth-generation trading family, with vintage material staged against clean modern architecture overlooking the Plaza. The tobacco canteens are extraordinary. So are the vintage Navajo chief blankets and the Navajo rug selection. It is also, for what it's worth, the most photogenic place for social media in Santa Fe.
Shiprock Santa Fe specializes in vintage Navajo rugs including a selection of chief blankets and eyedazzlers. Handmade and organically dyed.
Chanel Doinoff. For estate jewelry — Art Deco, filigree, the fine antique end of the spectrum. If your taste runs to old European craftsmanship alongside Southwestern work, this is the stop.
Black Diamond Curio. For the modern cowboy and cowgirl. Santa Fe memorabilia, collectible Western figurines, and the kind of oddities you did not know you were looking for.
Blue Rain Gallery. Museum-quality Native art. Preston Singletary's Tlingit glass sculpture alone justifies the visit — he is one of the finest living artists working in any medium. Tony Abeyta's wall-sized paintings carry a signature presence that stands with the great Southwestern moderns.
H Bar C. The California-cool Western brand you have seen a thousand times without knowing the name — look for the bent arrows on the yokes. One of the oldest and most influential Western labels there is, built on embroidery, appliqué, and tinsel-woven shirting, and worn on stage and on screen for the better part of a century. Eli is the exquisite, and delivers a full rundown of the company history!
Montecristi Custom Hat Works. Arguably the best hatmaker in the United States. Beaver, mink, and authentic Panama straw hand-woven in Ecuador. Ask for Synde. Short on time? Their Santa Fe Hat Company division sits conveniently near the Plaza.
Montecristi Custom Hat Works sources Panama and Fur Felt materials from the most skilled artisans and producers from around the world.
visvim. Just off the Plaza, in a quiet Victorian house — the Japanese label's first U.S. store, opened by Hiroki Nakamura and his wife Kelsi. Nakamura's work is built on natural dyes, hand-processes, and a deep, studied affinity for Navajo design and Southwestern craft. Everything is made in Japan.
WMV visvim's first store in North America opened in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Double Take. Santa Fe's legendary consignment and vintage house, recently named one of the top stores in the United States by The New York Times. Western wear, home goods, women's, men's, kids'. Last time I passed by Mark Maggiori on his way out with an armful of bags.
The Rainbow Man. Original Edward S. Curtis photography — goldtones and photogravures from The North American Indian, the most extensive photographic project ever undertaken of Native peoples, including the famous Canyon de Chelly image. Historically significant, complicated, and worth seeing in person.
“Canon de Chelly” by Edward S. Curtis shown with the Curt-Tone process (Curtis named the process after himself) more commonly referred to as a goldtone.
Palace of the Governors Portal. Under the portal on the Plaza, Native artisans have sold handmade work directly for more than ninety years. The program was formally organized in the 1930s, though the site has been a trade hub since the 1600s. Buy here. It is the oldest continuous direct-from-artist market in the country.
Where to Eat and Drink
La Plazuela at La Fonda on the Plaza. A 1920s courtyard room under a dramatic wrought-iron chandelier, ringed by hand-painted glass windows, with skylights and a fountain doing the rest of the work. La Fonda is one of the last standing Harvey Houses — Fred Harvey's operation shaped the entire idea of Southwestern hospitality and put Native-made goods in front of a national audience.
La Plazuela the coutyard restaurant located inside the famous La Fonda on the Plaza.
Secreto Lounge at Hotel St. Francis. Santa Fe's premier craft cocktail bar, inside the oldest hotel in the city. Their garden-to-glass program — fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs, local spirits, house bitters — is recognized well beyond New Mexico.
SkyFire at Bishop's Lodge. Our favorite dinner in Santa Fe. We have ordered our way through breakfast, brunch, and dinner here and never had a miss. Sit outside if the weather cooperates; the property does the rest.
SkyFire Bar at Bishop's Lodge (above) and outdoor restaurant seating with scenic views (below).
Anasazi Bar & Lounge at Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi. Casual, central, excellent. Known for the Silver Coin margarita, classic cocktails, local beer, and Southwestern plates.
The Anasazi Bar located inside of the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi just a few steps from the main plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Geronimo on Canyon Road. Fine dining inside the Borrego House, an adobe built in 1756 by Geronimo Lopez. Thick walls, kiva fireplaces, wood beams, a series of small intimate rooms. The menu is global-eclectic with Southwestern backbone — the Tellicherry-rubbed elk tenderloin is the order. Canyon Road itself is the half-mile of galleries you should walk before or after.
Gernonimo restaurant located off the historic Canyon Road in Santa Fe.
Café Pasqual's. A tiny, riotously colorful room near the Plaza — Mexican tile, folk art, hand-painted murals, communal table in back. The food is as good as the walls. This is a local gem.
Marketsteer Steakhouse. Happy hour in the Tack Room is a must do. When you enter the Tack Room, you will see two Chesterfield sofas adorned in denim fabric and a long banquette in Pendleton fabric positioned on top of a bold, red Navajo-inspired rug. Coffee tables designed to look like shadow boxes picture old rodeo memorabilia—from ribbons to steer shows. The locals would prefer you did not know.
The Tack Room situated inside Marketsteer Steakhouse in historic downtown Santa Fe.
Los Poblanos Farm Shop Norte. Food, pantry goods, and kitchen wares from the historic Albuquerque inn, spa, and lavender farm. The Rio Grande valley property is worth a detour on its own; the Santa Fe shop is the shortcut.
Mille. Breakfast. Croque madame or a Parisian baguette. Need I say more.
**Don't forget to buy piñon nuts in Santa Fe, you can visit local specialty shops, check out the Santa Fe Farmers' Market, or look for roadside vendors.
Museums Worth a Visit
Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. The finest collection of Navajo jewelry you can see under one roof, anchored by the Jim and Lauris Phillips Center for the Study of Southwestern Jewelry. The building itself is shaped like a hogan with the doorway facing the rising sun. Downstairs is the Case Trading Post, the museum's shop — modeled on the classic frontier trading posts and stocked with work from hundreds of artists who have shown in the museum, plus vintage silver, ceramics, and textiles. It is the best museum shop in Santa Fe and one of the best in the country.
The Wheelwright Museum is the largest collection of Navajo Jewelry on display in the world (above). Located on the lower level of the museum is Case Trading Post (below).
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. On Museum Hill. Out front stands the Apache Mountain Spirit Dancer, a monumental bronze by Craig Dan Goseyun (San Carlos Apache), cast in 1995 and installed on Milner Plaza since 2004. Goseyun studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts and worked under Allan Houser. The Mountain Spirits, or Gaan, are protective figures who appear in masked form among the Apache; the sculpture captures the motion of the dance with a physical presence that photographs never quite carry. It is among the most photographed works of art in Santa Fe.
Apache Mountain Spirit Dancer, a 24-foot bronze statue greets you at the entrance of the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture.
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. The flowers, the still lifes, the adobe architecture from her house in Abiquiú. Raw and enthralling. While you are there, see Tewa Nangeh / Tewa Country, an exhibition honoring Tewa people, art, culture, and landscapes — and confronting the erasure of Tewa presence from the story of Georgia O'Keeffe in Northern New Mexico. Co-curated by artist Jason Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo) and Bess Murphy, Luce Curator of Art and Social Practice, it features artists, scholars, and culture bearers from the six Tewa Pueblos: Nambé, Ohkay Owingeh, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, and Tesuque.
The Tewa Country exhibition on display at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum through November 1, 2026.
**Admission to the Wheelwright Museum, Museum of Indians Arts & Culture, and Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is free for Indigenous Peoples.
Where to Rest
Ten Thousand Waves. Fifteen minutes up Hyde Park Road into the Sangre de Cristo foothills, at 7,000-plus feet among the piñon and ponderosa. A faithful Japanese onsen translated into New Mexico — private and communal hot tubs, saunas, cold plunges, and a Japanese-adobe architecture of wood, stone, and running water. Book the shiatsu. Eat at Izanami afterward, the on-site izakaya, and order the wagyu you cook yourself on a 500-degree stone.
Ten Thousand Waves spa is a century-old resort inspired by the great Japanese mountain hot spring resorts offering an unforgettable experience.
Can't Make It to Indian Market? Shop New Indigenous Jewelry Here.
Not everyone can be on the Plaza in August. The work should still find you.
Cowgirls & Indians is Indigenous owned and operated. Ownership, curation, and craft stay in Native hands. Every piece we carry is made by a verified Indigenous silversmith and stamped with their hallmark.
Shop hallmarked contemporary Navajo jewelry — concho belts, buckles, cuffs, rings, and one-of-one statement pieces — from silversmiths working today.
We ship internationally. More than thirty countries, fully insured, with tracking from our hands to yours.
Made-to-Order pieces. If you want a specific stone, a specific size, or a piece that does not exist yet, we will make it with you. Bespoke Commissions begin with a conversation.
