State of the Art: It’s Creative Communities Week!

  |  July 20, 2015
The first signs of resident life at Kingston's Lace Mill artists' co-op.

The first signs of resident life at Kingston’s Lace Mill artists’ co-op. Photo from RUPCO on FB.

With residents starting to move into the recently-completed Lace Mill in Kingston, we’ve been thinking a lot of about the creative energy of the Hudson Valley and Catskills. It’s woven into the very fabric of this area, beginning with the Hudson River School artists that established artist enclaves in places like Palenville and Hudson, but that creative spirit didn’t stop there. While some communities drifted away from its maker roots in favor of industrial pursuits, they are starting to return to those origins with cities like Kingston and Beacon helping lead the charge. But those aren’t the only places to stretch your visionary muscles. Woodstock, Saugerties, Palenville, Catskill, and Phoenicia, just to name a few, are all art-friendly towns and getting more art-friendly by the second. In fact, there’s never been a better time to be an artist/artisan/craftsperson in the Hudson Valley and Catskills, and this week, we’ll be exploring some of the arts-iest areas in the Upstater milieu. So grab your clean brushes, put some White Flake on your paint palette, polish up your sculpting tools, and prepare some eye-pleasing properties in some of the most creative communities in upstate New York. Stay tuned…

About Kandy Harris

Kandy is a writer and musician/music teacher living in Saugerties, NY.

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