Press: In Step with Santa Fe Style

September 4, 2005
by Chris Welsch
in Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

Finding a piece of art you can call your own in Santa Fe is a challenge. The cheap stuff is almost inevitably bad and kitschy (howling coyotes, kokopelli figures playing a flute and hump-backed turquoise bears). Most of the contemporary, original work is priced for bond traders from New York or the Gene Hackman-types who have adobe homes up in the hills. For the rest of us, there's Keshi, a gallery that sells beautifully hand-made fetishes from the Zuni Pueblo. Fetishes are the small, stone animal figures that represent the spirit of the animal. Hawks, bears, wolves, horses, frogs, dragonflies and corn maidens, usually no more than 3 inches long, populate the shelves. The gallery represents more than 400 artists from the pueblo. Prices range from $40 to several hundred, although most seemed to be less than $100.