Upstate Art Weekend

Five days of art and music in an interactive, community-driven setting for Upstate Art Weekend

With
July 17–21, 2025
@
11am–5pm
FULL SCHEDULE BELOW
Sky and forest

UPSTATE ART WEEKEND (UAW) is a connective annual event, for residents and tourists alike, celebrating the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York. The sixth edition of UAW will take place Thursday, July 17, through Monday, July 21, 2025.

Make Your Own Art Presents
The Vessel

An immersive, collaborative installation rooted in visual, sonic, and movement-based practices, The Vessel invites audiences into a living artwork shaped by collective gesture. Over five days, the project unfolds in a transformed creative space in Margaretville, NY, where drawings, paintings, suspended canvases, and luminous sculptures create a dynamic environment for shared exploration.

From Thursday to Sunday, all are welcome to drop in—no experience required. Visitors may draw, paint, collage, experiment, or simply observe as the installation evolves in real time. Music weaves through the space, inviting reflection and play.

On Sunday at 2pm, The Vessel culminates in a one-time interdisciplinary performance. Longtime collaborators Gloria McLean, Michael Suchorsky, and Marshall Coid—artists with decades of international experience—premiere new works created for the event, including spontaneous improvisation in dance and music. Their contributions, together with live video by Ilona Kohlová and Alan Powell, form an immersive interplay of sound, image, and motion.

On Monday, the final form of The Vessel remains on view—a collective act of becoming.

Participating artists:

Bea Ortiz – installation, painting, drawing

Michael Suchorsky & Marshall Coid – music

Gloria McLean – dance

Ilona Kohlová & Alan Powell – video projection

Cris Ortiz – neon sculpture

Heather Craig – pop-up performances throughout the weekend

Event Schedule
11:00 am
5pm
Open Studio - Opening Day

Stop by to observe or take part— draw, paint, collage, and help shape the installation as it begins to take form.

11:00 am
5pm
Open Studio – With Live Music

Stop by to observe or take part — draw, paint, collage, and help shape the installation as it continues to unfold.

2:00 pm
3pm
Live music

Live music with Marshall Coid

11:00 am
5pm
Open Studio – With Live Music

Stop by to observe or take part — draw, paint, collage, and help shape the installation as it continues to unfold.

2:00 pm
3pm
Open Studio – Live music

Live music session by Marshall Coid.

11:00 am
1pm
Open Studio

Final open studio session. Stop by to observe or take part — draw, paint, collage, and help shape the installation as it continues to unfold.

2:00 pm
3pm
Interdisciplinary Performance – A Collective Expression

Gloria McLean, Michael Suchorsky, and Marshall Coid premiere new works in dance and music, joined by Ilona Kohlová and Alan Powell’s live video. An immersive interplay of movement, sound, and image unfolds through spontaneous improvisation.

11:00 am
5pm
Final Day – The Vessel in Full Form

Visit the transformed installation shaped over five days of shared artmaking.

DETAILS

venue

785 Main St. 2nd Floor

Margaretville, NY

12455

RSVP HERE

when

July 17–21, 2025
11am–5pm

Suggested donation

By donation
Meet
your
hosts
Portrait of Bea Ortiz in front of a painting

Bea Ortiz

Founder & Lead Artist

Bea Ortiz is a Spanish-American artist based in the Catskills whose work centers on painting, drawing, and participatory installation. Trained in fine art and art education in Spain, she moved to New York in 1998 and has continued to evolve a personal practice rooted in collaboration and cross-disciplinary experimentation. Her work often merges visual art with music, dance, and live performance, inviting audiences into the creative process. She creates opportunities for connection and creativity, believing that art becomes most powerful when it’s made—and experienced—together.

Portrait of Ilona Kohlová in an ice cave

Ilona Kohlová

Artist & Educator

Ilona Kohlová is a Czech intermedia artist and graphic designer residing in Brooklyn. She enhances events as a VJ artist and leads children’s art workshops at the Czech Center New York. She has organized a summer art camp in Prague and a workshop in Miami. Her multidisciplinary approach blends various mediums, music, and performance, embodying her belief that art transcends barriers. She encourages children to experiment and explore, fostering individual growth, and believes that “through creation lies the path to the soul.”

Choreographer Gloria McLean performing

Gloria McLean

Choreographer, Performer & Educator

Gloria McLean is a choreographer, performer, and educator based in New York City and Andes, NY. She is the founder and artistic director of LIFEDANCE/Gloria McLean and Dancers, a platform for collaborative,interdisciplinary performance. Her choreography has been presented at venues such as the 92nd Street Y, Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater, La Mama, and in international festivals across Europe, Asia, and North America. A leading member of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company from 1982 to 1993, she also served as rehearsal director and faculty member at the Hawkins School. McLean has held teaching positions at Keimyung University (South Korea), UW–Madison, and George Washington University, among others. She continues to create dances that honor the expressive body and our shared human experience.

Portrait of artist Marshall Coid

Marshall Coid

Violinist, Countertenor & Composer

Marshall Coid is a Juilliard-trained violinist, countertenor, composer, and interdisciplinary artist. Hailed by The New York Times as “astonishingly versatile,” his work spans Broadway, classical music, and experimental performance. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, MoMA, and international festivals in Moscow, Oxford, and Belgium, and held residencies at the Met Museum and St. John the Divine.

On Broadway, he appeared in 12 productions, including over 6,000 performances as the onstage violin soloist in Chicago. Coid has toured with Emerson, Lake & Palmer and composed for theater, film, and dance. His Whitman Cantata premiered at Tully Hall and won First Prize from the Dessoff Choirs. He currently collaborates with LIFEDANCE and performs with the MOSS Ensemble and CMF, dividing his time between New York City and the Catskills.

Portrait of musician, Michael Suchorsky

Michael Suchorsky

Musician & Composer

Michael Suchorsky has spent decades performing and recording around the world in a wide variety of musical genres—from Middle Eastern jazz, to microtonal music, to punk rock. He has appeared at venues that stretch from CBGB (NYC) to the Berlin, Montreux, Zurich, Copenhagen, and Bologna Jazz Festivals, the Moers New Music Festival, the Fête de l’Humanité (Paris), and Lincoln Center, as well as composing music throughout the years.

Portrait of artist, Alan Powell

Alan Powell

Media artist

Alan Powell is a media artist who has worked in electronic arts since the early 1970s, creating video, installations, artist books, and digital imagery. Trained at the Rhode Island School of Design, his education spans modernist and postmodernist approaches in photography, film, and video.

Collaboration is central to his practice, from the “Video Mix” (1974) at the National Center for Experiments in Television to his work with Electron Movers, Coleman/Powell, and Termite TV.

 

A Professor Emeritus at Arcadia University, Powell serves on the boards of Signal Culture and Termite TV. His recent projects explore environmental perception through multi-channel video, collage, and sound, with work rooted in sites such as Walden Pond, Platte Clove, Beqa Island, and Big Bend.

Portrait of artist, Cris Ortiz

Cris Ortiz

Artist & Educator

Cris is a neon fine artist and educator based in the Catskills. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and trained under master mentors in the neon arts, carrying forward the rare craft of glass bending to create luminous works that blend cultural memory—deeply rooted in his heritage—with contemporary vision.

Outside the studio, Ortiz shares his creative energy through outdoor installations, pop-up exhibitions, and hands-on work as a teaching artist in local schools. His approach invites curiosity, encourages experimentation, and celebrates the creative process as something joyful and accessible.

Portrait of artist, Heather T Craig

Heather Craig

Performance artist & Educator

Heather Craig is a performance artist based in the Catskills whose work explores somatic and primal themes through movement, character, and play. She studied cinematography, acting, and clowning, and has performed Off-Broadway and at venues including The PIT, Brooklyn Comedy Collective, and the Jacob Burns Film Center. Following a traumatic brain injury in 2023, she began exploring Polyvagal Theory, later developing The Polyvagal Clown—a trauma-informed performance class shaped by her training with Deb Dana and Pandemonium Studios.

Mace looking good at Scope Miami

Mace Fleeger

Creative Director

From the Catskills of New York, I pour over 20 years of experience designing digital experiences into branding and marketing websites for startups and established companies.