The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture presents its annual two-day Native Treasures Art Market, preserving traditions and honoring its Living Treasure and Native Treasures Legacy award winners.

Anthony Lovato, a master of tufa metal casting, will receive a gift at the Native Treasures Night Market that many New Mexicans would covet: a piece of art created for him by Virgil Ortiz. The night market precedes the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s two-day Native Treasures Art Market, and its tradition for the previous year’s Living Treasures Award winner is to present a gift to the current year’s winner. In 2024, when the market marks its 20th year, it will be Lovato’s turn to create a gift for his successor.

Lovato (Kewa/santo Domingo Pueblo) and Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo) will be part of a ceremony at the night market at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Joining them will be sisters Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas, Navajo tapestry weavers who are the winners of this year’s Native Treasures Legacy Award. Both awards “honor Native American artists who have made outstanding artistic contributions to the field of Indigenous arts and culture,” according to MIAC.

More than 150 creators are set to be part of the art market, says Pollyanna Nordstrand (Hopi), executive director of MIAC. Artists keep all their proceeds, she says, and are selected for participation by a MIAC committee.

The night and art markets are held over Memorial Day weekend and generally draw 45,000 to 50,000 people, Nordstrand says. Among the art market’s selling points, she says, is the ability to talk directly to artists about their work.

Planning the Native Treasures weekend takes about 10 months, Nordstrand says. The night market is a fundraiser for MIAC, and tickets cost $100 each.

“We have sort of a cocktail party with hors d’oeuvres, and the artists are all in attendance,” Nordstrand says of the Friday night market. “And then we have an event at the convention center for everyone to just kind of relax and mingle.”

Native Treasures Night Market

5 to 8 p.m. Friday, May 26

Santa Fe Community Convention Center, 201 W. Marcy St. $100, sfnm.co/ntnightmarket