The 2023 Guide
by Julie Baumgardner
There are certain constants to the Hudson Valley, even as its borders emotionally extend to past the Catskills and over into the Litchfield hills. Nature, farming and art are the big top three (if you ask me); and their often-impassioned pursuit is what drives the land around here.
The Hudson and its psychic tributaries has been a place of art making and culture building from the time of its original stewards, Lenape, Munsee and Mohican peoples and then onto the American Century that brought Thomas Cole and the Woodstock Colony. Here is a place that necessitates interaction with the land, an ever-generating source of reflection that’s always evolving.
In this uncertain cultural moment, the arts community upstate serves as possibility and inspiration. Such artistic freedom is unique in this current place and time (of our global reality, not just that it’s 2-hours from NYC).
And so, Upstate Art Weekend has anchored itself onto the Hudson Valley calendar as a moment where bringing whatever artistic thing you do to the table however you do it, and having a community to support it. With some 130 participants this year, spanning from the northern line of Westchester as far north almost to Albany, near east as Connecticut and far West as PA, this Upstate Art Weekend is the biggest hug Helen Toomer has given yet.
As the Weekend expands, we thought it to be a smart idea to help make some sense of the sheer volume of activity. That’s where I come in, editing the first-ever official The Guide, a two-part downloadable PDF contextualizing the weekend as an art collector (by theme) or a traveler (by routes).
The region is large, and it’s impossible to do it all—trust me, I’ve tried, even sitting bumper-to-bumper on the Kingston-Rhinebeck Bridge as a summer thunderstorm pounded my windshield (of a ‘92 red/white Bronco, HONK IF YOU SEE ME!) thus knowing I’d miss the Stoneleaf Kick-Off Party. But that’s why we’ve made these guides, so you can plan ahead! The Guides are easily saved to your phone, and have all logistical info and tools (like maps!) linked. Too bad we can’t predict the weather.
While it’s only a weekend, and the arts up here are a seasonless enterprise, what a moment to come together. See you out in the fields, barns, river's side and NY-9!