One Weekend, 240 Artists: Don’t Miss Upstate Art Weekend’s Open Studios

As anticipation builds for this summer’s edition of Upstate Art Weekend, a new initiative is offering an earlier invitation into the creative communities that define the Hudson Valley and Catskills. Taking place Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Open Studios by UAW brings together 240 artists across the region, opening their working spaces to the public in a rare opportunity for direct engagement with artists and their practices.

Founded by Helen Toomer, the initiative expands the spirit of Upstate Art Weekend beyond a single long weekend, foregrounding the region not only as a destination for cultural tourism, but as an active ecosystem of year-round artistic production. Intimate in format yet expansive in reach, the program encourages visitors to travel between towns, landscapes, and studios, experiencing firsthand the diversity of practices shaping the area today.

Open Studios by Upstate Art Weekend

Participating artists range from emerging voices to established names working across painting, sculpture, ceramics, installation, textile, and mixed media. Among the artists opening their studios are Josh Dorman, known for his densely layered paintings and cut-paper works; ceramic artist Kathy Ruttenberg; multidisciplinary artist Sarah Cameron Sunde; photographer Andrew Moore; painter Kate Steciw; sculptor Natalie Baxter; artist and curator Jesse Bransford; and artist Lala Abaddon, whose psychologically charged works explore identity and transformation.

“What I love about Open Studios by UAW is how intimate and personal it feels—visitors have the chance to step inside artists’ working spaces, meet them directly, and really connect with their creative process,” said Upstate Art Weekend founder, Toomer. Upstate Art Weekend in June has a different energy: it’s a much larger celebration across the region, bringing together museums, galleries, residencies, sculpture parks, and cultural organizations alongside artists and exhibitions. The two weekends really complement one another and together showcase the incredible depth and vibrancy of the Hudson Valley arts community.”

“What I love about Open Studios by UAW is how intimate and personal it feels,”

—Upstate Art Weekend

The initiative also highlights the deep interconnectivity of the region’s creative community. Visitors can encounter artists working from converted barns, industrial spaces, historic homes, and purpose-built studios throughout the Hudson Valley and Catskills, creating a map of artistic production that feels deeply rooted in place. From Kingston and Hudson to Catskill, Germantown, Accord, and beyond, Open Studios encourages a slower, more personal way of engaging with art—one grounded in conversation, process, and environment.

“Earthen Plot” Opens with Work by Open Studio Artists

Extending that spirit into a collective exhibition format is “Earthen Plot,” a group presentation curated by Toomer and hosted at UAW headquarters in Kingston from May 16 through June 29, 2026. Located at UAW HQ at 236 Wall Street, Room 103, the exhibition opens with a reception on Friday, May 15 from 6–8 p.m., with expanded public hours during Open Studios weekend and again during Upstate Art Weekend in June.

Selected from more than 200 participating Open Studios artists, “Earthen Plot” brings together 37 artists whose practices are, as the exhibition notes, “rooted—physically, spiritually, or intuitively—in the conditions of place.” Through sculpture, painting, installation, and ephemeral forms, the exhibition examines relationships between land, material, labor, cultivation, and embodiment, offering a concentrated lens on the broader artistic landscape of the region.

Artists featured in the exhibition include Adie Russell, Alicia Genevieve Mikles, Alison Owen, Amy Talluto, Ashley Lyon, Bob Szantyr, Carolyn Sheehan, Jesse Bransford, Jon Beer, Kate Steciw, Kathy Ruttenberg, Lala Abaddon, Lexa Walsh, Natalie Baxter, Nicole Helen Brunner, Steven Weinberg, Yoonmi Lee, and Zejian Shen, among others. The exhibition’s title gestures toward both cultivation and geography, framing artistic practice as something intertwined with the physical and emotional terrain of the Hudson Valley and Catskills.

Rather than functioning as a traditional survey, “Earthen Plot” emphasizes atmosphere and interconnectedness. Works move between intimacy and scale, abstraction and figuration, organic and constructed materials. Together, they reflect how artists in the region are responding to questions of ecology, memory, domesticity, spirituality, and community through materially driven practices.

Looking Ahead to Upstate Art Weekend 2026

The timing of both initiatives also serves as a lead-up to the main edition of Upstate Art Weekend, taking place June 25–29, 2026. Now one of the country’s most anticipated regional arts events, the annual program will feature 160 participating organizations across the Hudson Valley, including museums, galleries, sculpture parks, residencies, artist studios, and nonprofit spaces. Open Studios and “Earthen Plot” offer an early glimpse into the networks and creative energy that continue to make the region a vital center for contemporary art.

At a moment when audiences increasingly seek more direct and meaningful encounters with artists and their work, Open Studios by UAW offers something refreshingly personal. Visitors are invited not only to see finished works, but to experience the spaces, landscapes, conversations, and processes that shape them—creating a richer understanding of the Hudson Valley and Catskills as both artistic destination and lived creative community.