The highlight of Pham’s last Upstate Art Weekend was visiting the open studios at Foreland, the three-building, 85,000-square-foot campus that Halmos founded. There are galleries, studios, and co-working spaces as well as commercial tenants, including a hair salon, a boxing gym, and a popular cafe. “The spirit was very convivial and communal, and the crowd epitomized ‘upstate,’” Pham says of her visit to the complex. Plus, she adds, it’s an excuse to visit the town of Catskill. “If Hudson is Beyoncé, Catskill is Solange. It’s a little lesser known, but just as beautiful,” says Pham. “It’s the more interesting sibling that’s always on the verge of revitalization and never quite hits the mainstream.”
R. B. Schlather, opera director, Hudson resident: The CampusClaverack, NY
Schlather’s production of the emotionally charged, Pulitzer-Prize-winning, mid-century American opera Vanessa will be the first opera in 71 years at the legendary Williamstown Theater Festivalwhich is partly curated by playwright Jeremy O. Harris this summer. Schlather urges art lovers to visit The Campusthe abandoned midcentury school that a cluster of gallerists recently turned into an art megaplex. “It’s so cool to see that space in its new iteration,” Schlather says. “Growing up in Cooperstown, NY, I went to a school like that and I love how they kept a lot of details, like the chalkboards and the locker rooms and the science labs.”
Presley Oldham, jewelry designer, Hudson resident: Mary MacGillGermantown, NY
Oldhamwhose gender-neutral pearl-and-wire creations sell at Bergdorf Goodman and who was a finalist for the 2024 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, sings the praises of fellow jewelry designer Mary MacGillwhose pieces are both serene and striking. “It’s fun to see a jeweler on the list this year,” Oldham says. MacGill’s work toes the line between fine art and jewelry, and she will be showing new sculptural pieces that take inspiration from modernists like Alexander Calder and Catherine Noll. “We have mutual friends, and I met her when we did the Stissing House Craft Feast together last year,” Oldham notes. “She uses lots of wire wrapping, as do I, but she interprets things differently than I do. I can’t wait to see what she’s come up with.”
Sari Botton, writer, editor, Substacker, Kingston resident: Noisemakers Dance party at AssemblyKingston, NY
Botton, who has called Kingston home for 11 years, was thrilled when a former Catholic girls’ school was converted into Assembly, a local events and co-working space that hosts concerts and offers pilates and ecstatic dance classes. Botton plans to attend the July 18 Upstate Art Weekend party, which doubles as an abortion-rights benefit. “It’s a lovely setting, and the acoustics are primo,” Botton says. “Normally it’s a little sleepy around here, but Assembly has been helping to change that.”
