Eco Arts Week

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Eco Arts Week at MKAD Returns for Its 5th Year: April 25 – May 2, 2026

Because We Care

A Celebration of Sustainability, Creativity, and Community in Kingston, NY

MKAD’s fifth annual Eco Arts Week will take place April 25 to May 2, 2026, including the annual Art Yard Sale, three weeks artist residencies with three artist groups, and six workshops of environmentally conscious art, conversation, and community action in the heart of the Hudson Valley.

Held at The DRAW Studio (20 Cedar Street) and Neighborhood Print Studio (49 Greenkill Avenue) in Kingston, this year’s event features multiple free events daily between 10am and 9pm. From interactive workshops to artist talks and panel discussions, each offering encourages creativity and sustainability through the reuse of materials, community storytelling, and eco-friendly art-making.

Humanity’s relationship with the environment is complex, intimate, and often fraught with contradiction. Consider the vibrant flora adorning our neighborhoods, the persistent chorus of cicadas on summer evenings, and the enduring presence of rocks and trees that shape our daily landscapes. Alongside these natural wonders stand the traces of human activity: ubiquitous manufactured goods, littered beverage containers on city streets, and oceans increasingly burdened by microplastics. This environment—at once cherished, familiar, and deeply scarred—compels us to reflect: What forces have shaped these changes? What responsibilities and choices confront us now?

The theme – Because We Care, marking the fifth anniversary of Eco Arts Week, this year’s producer Maxine Leu between Midtown Kingston Arts District (MKAD) brings together artists whose practices span diverse stages and disciplines, each offering nuanced responses to the environmental crisis. Their short-term residencies at Neighborhood Print Studio (NPS) provide a rare opportunity for the public to witness the creative process, engage in meaningful dialogue, and participate in special presentations, demonstrations, and workshops—all open and free of charge. Join us in exploring art’s vital role in fostering environmental awareness and collective action.

Saturday, April 25, 10am–4pm

Art Yard Sale

Neighborhood Print Studio

Join the Midtown Kingston Arts District and The DRAW for our annual Art Yard Sale—and help us kick off the 5th Annual Eco Arts Week—on Saturday, April 25, from 10 AM–4 PM!

Browse a treasure trove of new and gently used art supplies, from drawing and painting materials to unexpected creative finds. Whether you’re a seasoned artist, a student, or just getting started, there’s something here to spark your creativity.

Opening Day of Eco Arts Week
Everything is pay-what-you-can
All proceeds support free and low-cost arts programming

Donate to Our Art Yard Sale!

We’re looking for gently used art supplies, tools, fabric, paper, and other creative materials to give them a second life in the hands of fellow artists and crafters!

What We Love to Receive:
Paints, brushes, canvases, and easels
Fabric, yarn, and sewing supplies
Sketchbooks, specialty papers, and cardstock
Beads, wire, and jewelry-making tools
Printmaking, sculpture, and mixed media supplies

What We Can’t Accept:
Picture frames
No books or DVDs
Single-use plastics or disposable items
General recyclables (bottles, containers, packaging)
Broken or unusable materials
Hazardous or toxic supplies
Wish-cycling

We want to keep this a treasure trove for makers—not a drop-off spot for difficult-to-dispose-of items. Thank you for donating with intention and helping us create a space filled with inspiration.

Donations accepted at the Neighborhood Print Studio, between noon and 5 pm, Tuesday – Saturday. Deadline for donations is April 24, 2026

Eco Arts Week artist residencies

Open Studio Residency Hours:

Eco Art Lab: Tuesday, April 7, 1–5 PM & Friday, April 10, 1–5 PM
James Fossett: Tuesday, April 14, 12–3 PM & Wednesday, April 15, 12–3 PM
Sonya Blesofsky: Wednesday, April 22, 11-1 PM & Thursday, April 23, 11-1 PM

Additional workshops and public programs will be announced soon.

All Eco Arts Week events are free with RSVP. Materials are provided unless otherwise noted, and participants are encouraged to bring recyclables, fabrics, or personal materials to incorporate into their work.

Eco Art Lab, April 4-10

Eco Art Lab is an eco-collective of students and faculty at SUNY New Paltz. Through collaboration, sustainable practices, and socially engaged design, the collective cultivates biodiverse art and spaces that foster ecological awareness and community connection.

The Eco Art Lab is their first major project designed in 2024 by Professor Emily Puthoff’s Eco Art class in partnership with the campus community. The lab is a vibrant, biodiverse, learning garden growing outside the Fine Arts Building. Sculpted hügelkultur beds support native perennials for pollinators alongside species for natural dye, and papermaking. The lab also features a food forest, and sensory areas for reflection. The lab nurtures creative practices rooted in sustainability, interconnection, and collective care.

Artists:
James Biordi, Gabbi Bush, Ripley Butterfield, Adam Holland, Kaya Keller, Olivia Maxson, Tierney O’Brien, Risa Oshinsky, Carolann Paszek, Emily Puthoff, Deminica Richard, Adrian Rothpearl, Max Rosoff, Abigail Schwab, Morgan Tobio, Grace Van Pelt, Mars Weigley, Caelen Williams

James Fossett, April 11-17

Jim Fossett works primarily in photography, video, sound, installation, and performance. His work investigates narrative culture and storytelling. He is a principal and founding member of Cave Dogs, a shadow-based performance collective. He received his BA in Photojournalism from Kent State University, Kent OH, and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Fossett was born and raised in mid-coast, Maine and currently lives and works in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Sonya Blesofsky, April 18-24

Sonya Blesofsky is a New York based installation artist whose work is inspired by the built environment and explores personal and collective memory. Her site-responsive work employs architectural interventions, cast sculptures, hand-built plaster forms and constructions made from found architectural objects. Blesofsky’s sculptural works look at how we remember places, and how that remembering shapes us. She currently uses historic plasterworking and traditional trade techniques to embody the process of remembering, and to act as both advocate and critic of historic ornament and its relationship to power.

Join Sonya for an ARTIST TALK – Tracing History: Site as Source Material on Saturday, April 25, 3:30-4:30pm at Upstate Films/Midtown screening room on 591 Broadway, Kingston, NY
Register Here

About the Producer

Headshot of teaching artist Maxine Leu

Maxine Leu is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and environmental advocate. She founded Eco Arts Week to bring together local artists and the community in a shared pursuit of sustainability, justice, and creativity.

Eco Arts Week 2026 Classes

Eco Arts Week 2026 – ARTIST TALK: Tracing History: Site as Source Material

An artist lecture by Sonya Blesofsky

My sculptural works look at how we remember places, and how that remembering shapes us.

I explore personal places, places of collective memory, and places that are imagined. Sites I have worked with include an historic building burned to the ground by arson, my first New York City apartment, a former Jewish monuments shop, a past era when “life was simpler,” and the United States White House. I am interested in how space is designed, built, and inhabited, and I seek to uncover the overlooked history of places.

The installations and sculptures I create are site-responsive: literally made from and in the spaces they inhabit, they are emblematic of the history of that place. Through each artwork, I intend to highlight traces of the past to memorialize what came before, frame the present, and inform the future.

Eco Arts Week 2026 – Eco-Explorations

Join the Eco Art Lab Collective for a day of creative eco-exploration.

Together, we’ll slow down, observe, and reconnect with the living world around us. Through hands-on activities, we’ll experiment with natural printmaking inks and accessible eco-stenciling techniques to connect with local biodiversity.

We’ll create handmade paper and learn on a guided foraging walk, letting curiosity lead the way. This workshop offers space to reflect, play, and connect through creativity, curiosity, and care for the natural world.

Eco Arts Week 2026 – Recycled Relief Shadow Sculpture

Students will combine natural and recycled materials to create multidimensional sculptural forms, then transform those works into a light and shadow projection. Participants are encouraged to collect and bring in sticks, leaves, seed pods, bark, and other collected natural materials to be connected together to create organic shadow patterns.

man holding sculpture mad of recycled material eco arts week 2026 mkad

Eco Arts Week 2026 – Paper/Swap/Collage

Give paper a second life—and leave with a stack of inspiration.

In this hands-on workshop, we’ll transform post-consumer materials—brown paper bags, studio scraps, and found papers—into richly layered collage surfaces. Through playful experimentation with stencils, inks, resist techniques, painting, and drawing, you’ll build a vibrant collection of altered papers ready for future work.

We’ll close with a paper swap, so everyone goes home with a diverse mix of textures, marks, and ideas from the group.

Perfect for artists of all levels who love process, material exploration, and a little creative exchange.

Eco Arts Week 2026 – Found Object Mosaics

This workshop invites participants to transform broken ceramic shards (e.g., from old plates, cups, flowerpots, worn and/or broken heirloom items, thrifted finds, etc.) into vibrant newly crafted works of art through the tactile process of “broken china” or “picassiete” mosaic.

Over the course of the session, we will work with hammers, towels, and tile nippers to safely break pottery into unique shards. We will then utilize the ceramic shards to create decorative wall hangings, coasters and/or trays by applying them to found and prepared wooden substructures.

Participants are encouraged to bring in their own broken, well-worn plates, cherished but no longer loved ceramic items, and/or an old wooden frame that they want to use as a substrate on which to apply the tesserae (small, distinct pieces of ceramic shards). However, all materials will be provided to complete a project, so no one needs to bring anything.

Each participant will leave with a personalized piece that gives “new life” to things old, broken, and discarded, thus focusing on repurposing domestic objects and creating new work using salvaged materials.

Eco Arts Week 2026 – Tetra Pak Printmaking

Join Maxine Leu for a Tetrapak Printmaking workshop. This workshop will encourage people to think about our connection to our environment. Participants will be introduced to the “6 R’s,” a list of eco-friendly tips that touch upon issues of environmental waste. Following this, students will learn Intaglio and monotype printmaking techniques that will allow them to imprint the shapes and textures of their Tetrapak onto paper.

Eco Arts Week 2026 – Painting from Nature

Come to relax, create, meditate, and appreciate nature with Maxine Leu. Students will be introduced to the Spontaneous styles of Chinese brush painting, the Four Treasures of Study, five tones of black, the meaning of four-gentleman plants, insects, and animals. The classes will cover basic techniques like brush holding, strokes, water control, composition in Eastern painting, and signature. This class is open to beginners.

Eco Arts Week 2026 – Because We Care, Make Your Hero Move: Moving Sculpture Workshop

Kids and family friendly workshop! Join us in our treasure hunt for second-hand materials and make movable sculptures with repurposed materials and cardboard. The instructor will introduce you to the basic principles of automata and character design inspired by global warming to create continuous rotations as the input motions, such as moving a stick back and forth, intermittent walking and stopping, or raising their hands up and down.

Eco Arts Week 2026 – Deep Listening Sound Walk on the Hudson

This workshop offers a guided introduction to Deep Listening®—the practice of heightened awareness of sound and sounding—set in nature along the Hudson River at Kingston’s Rotary Park (across from Kingston Point Beach). This ear-centered group exploration invites participants to listen with their whole bodies, attuning to the shifting sonic relationship between land and river, and to one another within a shared field of awareness.

Grounded in the practice developed by Pauline Oliveros, the workshop engages the body as a site of receiving and sending sound through gentle movement, meditation, and creative play. As we listen—individually and collectively—we do so with care: for the environment and for one another. Lisa will share how Deep Listening informs her life and work. No musical experience is necessary—all are welcome.