When I walked into the Vernick Auditorium, a large rectangular room off the main hallway of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, Educator Dawn Kaufman was shuffling through children’s books by the stage. A sprinkling of young kids sat nearby as a steady stream of people came in and filled the middle and back rows of chairs.
Kaufman welcomed the group to Family Morning on that brisk Sunday in January, asked the kids a few questions and then read them “Otto Goes North” by Ulrika Kestere. Next, the group moved across the hall to a light-filled atrium, where families selected brightly colored felt ponchos as well as beads and yarn to decorate them.
Matt Cdebaca was gathering supplies with his daughter Kayla. “Families get to come out here to get creative, and it’s free — you know, it’s nice to have something like this to do.”
I sat down with a family of four who are regulars. Nine-year-old Arjun Wendland and his 6-year-old sister, Ayesha, were smoothing out the wrinkles of their felt ponchos on the round table and making artistic plans. “The one thing that makes it a bit easier,” said Arjun, “is laying it flat.”
His mother, Jayita Sahni, returned with a fresh round of supplies. When the children got restless. they scampered off to see Yōkai: Ghosts & Demons of Japan, their favorite exhibit.
I asked Sahni what she likes about this program. “The nice thing about the projects over here is that you don’t have to have a particular skill level,” she said and explained that she and her family also had decorated sugar skulls for the annual Day of the Dead festival at the museum, punched tin pieces shaped as body parts to make milagros, and even made shadow puppets.
On a visit on another cloudy winter day, I sat in the atrium with Kaufman and Leslie Fagre, director of education. They mentioned that the museum is one of a kind, in that so many objects come from other parts of the world. There are a couple of other American folk art museums, they said, but none so global.
The museum defines folk art broadly. It can be decorative or utilitarian and used every day or reserved for high ceremonies, for example. But it generally is handmade and traditional, reflecting shared cultural aesthetics and social issues.

I asked about the difference between folk art and crafts.
“Sometimes the term folk art and craft overlap,” Fagre said. “I think it's from the beholder's eye.” She said sometimes the term “folk art” is viewed as a negative because it’s “perceived as cheap tourist art.” 
“What we are looking at are pieces that really communicate people's heritage and background,” added Kaufman. 
The museum was founded in 1953 by Florence Dibell Bartlett, whom Fagre described as “an heiress or a wealthy philanthropist from Chicago … back in the time when woman didn't have many options to work that much.” Dibell Bartlett not only donated 3,000 folk art objects from her personal collection, but also worked with the state to construct the museum on Museum Hill, a beautiful location with sweeping views of Santa Fe and the surrounding mountains. She also started a foundation that helps fund a lot of the museum’s programming and research work, Fagre added.
That programming includes lots of partnerships with other museums, schools and organizations, as well as in-museum programs like the monthly Family Morning. Over time, the museum grew wings, such as the Hispanic Heritage Wing and Contemporary Hispanic Gallery, the Girard Wing, the Neutrogena Wing and the Gallery of Conscience.
Exhibits are ever changing. I saw an exhibit of warm clothing worn by the Sámi people of Scandinavia, who are best known as reindeer herders. That exhibit closed in February, but visitors this spring can see La Cartoneria Mexicana/The Mexican Art of Paper and Paste. In late May, the Alaska Native parka takes center stage. 
The jewel in the crown is a permanent exhibit called “Multiple Visions: A Common Bond.” It houses 10,000 objects that designer Alexander Girard collected in his travels to about 100 countries. He created furniture for Herman Miller and designed colorfully painted airplanes for Braniff Airways. Girard designed and staged every exhibit, including whole villages, village squares and even a dining room table filled with animals dressed in human clothes. 
Fagre described his approach as “groupings of international folk art, like there’s a bead wall with bead work from Africa, from France, from India, and he's put it all together. He likes to have that contrast … so you go see a whole Victorian village there or a whole Mexican village.”
The exhibits don’t have any label text. “He wanted people to just wander around and enjoy folk art and be surprised by it and just look at it and appreciate the visual beauty of it,” Fagre said
A lot of folk artists in those days didn’t sign their work either, she and Kaufman added. 
I asked whether folk art changes much over time.
“A lot of folk art is very contextual,” Fagre said. “So, for whatever purpose it was created, maybe that purpose changes or the context changes in the materials and then the art techniques.” She added that more “folk artists are trying to make a living off of their art now, (so) sometimes what is popular in the market might determine what direction their art goes.”
She and Kaufman offered examples, weavings made with telephone wire and prisoner artwork on handkerchiefs, which are to be featured in an exhibit that opens in 2024.
Then Kaufman took me on a tour of the Girard Wing and my eyes landed on the wide array of scenes and countless tiny details like a railroad car with bottlecaps for wheels. We stood in front of a case with a teddy bear in an Irish sweater, a Caribbean sailor doll and a doll with a “herd dance cape.” 
When Girard designed the exhibits, Kaufman said, “He kind of mixed and matched things from cultures all over, … so he just kind of drew everybody together.” 
“I can imagine that more than one kid or adult has dreamed of being locked up in here all night, don’t you think?” I asked.
“Yes,” Kaufman agreed, “Just to enjoy it all and get a chance to really feast their eyes. And then they'd probably like to take the dolls out and play with them.”
We stopped and looked at what Kaufman calls The Christmas Dolls Party. “It's very experiential,” she said. “You kind of walk up and you feel like you could be in the scene. And kids just really engage with that, you know, because they imagine kind of being there.”
On the lower level, I was intrigued by the opportunity to play the gamelon, which is a bit like a xylophone. It’s just one example of the many hands-on play and craft stations throughout the museum. 
On Family Morning, I left the poncho making activities and headed to the Japanese exhibit. I ran into Arjun and Ayesha, who took me around to see some of the monsters. We stopped in front of a giant, hatchet-wielding demon with a bright red papier-mâché mask. Sound effects poured out of another, sinister laughter that put us on edge. 
I asked Ayesha if she was scared.
“I probably am,” she answered. “When it gets too scary, close your eyes!”
“Is this like a haunted house in Japan?” I asked.
“Yeah!” she responded, and I felt like I’d been on a tour of the world. No passport required.
For information about events, openings and other family friendly programs: internationalfolkart.org
New Mexico residents get free entry on the first Sunday of the month.