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Midsummer Festival of the Arts
July 20–21, 2024
The fifty-fourth Midsummer Festival of the Arts will be held July 20-21, 2024, on the grounds of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Sheboygan’s City Green.
This highly anticipated free event brings thousands of festivalgoers and artists together. The Festival features up to 100 juried artists—including returning award winners from last year—offering original works of art in a wide variety of categories, including ceramics, painting, photography, metal, fiber, watercolor, wood, jewelry, and others.
The weekend also includes live music and performances, exhibitions, hands-on art making, demonstrations, food, and fun. The emerging artist area for up to five invited artists offers an opportunity for collegiate and rising artists to learn about business in the arts.
If you have questions or need more information, please email MFA@jmkac.org.
Free Admission!
View the Festival Map
Featured Artist
Tonja Ihlenfeldt
Booth #6
A native Iowan, Tonja Ihlenfeldt began her career in 1991 with a BFA in painting from Arizona State. While being married to her high school sweetheart for over thirty-three years and raising seven children, she has shown in galleries and participated in art shows all over the Unites States. She has worked in oils and charcoal and is currently working with mixed media.
Free Concerts: City Green Stage
These concerts are part of the Levitt AMP Sheboygan Music Series.
KAT HIL
Saturday, July 15
11:30 a.m.
Wheatus
Saturday, July 15
2:00 p.m.
Fox Menagerie
Sunday, July 16
11:30 a.m.
De La Buena
Sunday, July 16
2:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. Enjoy strolling performances including stilt walker Jess Clark, aerial performance with Warped Dance Company, and hoop movement and acrobatics with Sarah Masarik and Azrielle Berge.
Participating food trucks:
• Dereks Curbside Grill
• The Cookie Crate
• Thai Express
• Gyros 2GO
• Rosa’s Bakery
• Junior’s Eats
• The Kernel and the Old Maid
• Pork in the Road
• Sweet Escapes
• BoMallies
• Harvest Street
• PejaVu
• Say Cheese
• The Nutman
• Paradigm
• Flips Mini Donuts
• JMKAC’s Culinary Art Car
Food vendors are subject to change.
Food and nonalcoholic carry-ins welcome. The Arts Center CAFE inside the building will be closed during the festival.
Beverage Tent Menu:
• Arts Center Fred Smith Lager
• 3 Sheeps Beer: Pils, Chaos Pattern IPA,
• Rebel Kent Amber Ale
• NA Upside Down
• 3 Sheeps Cloudless Hard Seltzer: Wild
• Berry, Pineapple, Mango
• Wine & Sangria: Cabernet, Chardonnay, Moscato, Cruz Real Sangria
• Soda: Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Starry
• Bottled Water
Beverage menu is subject to change.
No alcohol carry-ins allowed.
Food and nonalcoholic carry-ins welcome. The Arts Center CAFE inside the building will be closed during the festival.
Planted Possibilities (Festival Green Activities Tent)
Who do you consider kin? Family, friends, pets, plants? Use mixed-media materials to create a paper leaf that shares about your kin. Then, add your leaf to a community tree. Create additional leaves to take home and create your own plant or gift for your kin.
Portable Pictographs (Festival Green Activities Tent)
Create a design representing words that you live by and turn it into a shrink-art, stained-glass key chain. Find inspiration in the Kea Tawana: I Traveled into the Future in a Dream exhibition inside the Arts Center.
Remember Love Recovery Project (City Green Activities Tent)
Join artist and educator Patty Bode in making a flag for the Remember Love Recovery Project. The project raises awareness, organizes activism, and provides accurate information related to addiction disorder and recovery through arts and education.
Ancestral Futures with Ka Oskar Ly (City Green Activities Tent) Saturday, July 15, Only
Artist Ka Oskar Ly will facilitate the creation of a collective table-length canvas tapestry based on our kinship and desires. Stencil and paint a design that speaks to you on this collaborative community artwork. Ly will be in residence with the Arts Center and Sheboygan community, July 13–August 3, leading a series of Hmong batik and textile-based workshops.
Be sure to include the exhibitions inside the Arts Center in your Festival experience. We invite you to connect with community, artists, and the world around us through the current Arts Center theme Considering Kin. The exhibitions feature contemporary visual artists who approach kinship through an expansive lens and propose a range of possibilities for making, and being, better kin.
Exhibitions include: Sharing the Same Breath, Kea Tawana: I Traveled into the Future in a Dream, Moises Salazar Tlatenchi:-A Quien le Importa, Morehshin Allahyari: Moon-faced, Patricia Piccinini: encounters of another plot, Andrea Chung: if they put an iron circle around your neck i will bite it away, Regional Responses to the Art Preserve, and Arts/Industry Highlights.
Emerging Artist Space (Matrix inside the Arts Center)
Five emerging regional artists were invited to participate in this year’s Midsummer Festival of the Arts: Liala Amin, Sonia Vasquez, Hector Acuna, Nehemiah Edwards, and Celeste Contreras. This Arts Center initiative makes arts festivals more accessible to emerging artists. Thank you to artist consultant Frank Juarez of Artdose Magazine for selecting these artists to be part of this experience.
2:00–3:00 p.m. Happy Hour
The Arts Center deeply appreciates the support of our members. Please join us at the Festival in the Library Sculpture Garden both days for a Happy Hour including libation and kinship.
The Arts Center is thrilled to welcome back three organizations serving adults with disabilities that were part of last year’s Festival. Please meet Arts for All, Project Onward, and RCS Empowers, Inc. outside the Arts Center across from the front entrance.
To help us kick off the Midsummer Festival of the Arts weekend, come meet the emerging regional artists participating in this year’s Festival and learn more about their practice!
Friday, July 14, 2023
5:00–7:00 p.m.
The featured artists include Liala Amin, Sonia Vasquez, Hector Acuna, Nehemiah Edwards, and Celeste Contreras.
Make plans over the same weekend of the Festival (July 14-16) to stop at Kiwanis Park for the Sheboygan Hmong Summer Festival featuring music, dance competitions, sports competitions, vendors, and more. On Sunday, July 16, Ka Oskar Ly will be there facilitating the making of a table-length, collective tapestry for public gatherings.
Visit the Art Preserve and see the Art Center’s collection of over thirty-five artist-built environments along with the outdoor temporary installation of Rose B. Simpson: Counterculture. Admission is free. The Art Preserve is located at 3636 Lower Falls Rd., Sheboygan.
It is not recommended to bring pets with the exception of service animals. No unauthorized drones. No bird scooters.
Artists interested in applying to Midsummer Festival of the Arts
Applications to participate in the Festival are accepted from December 15, 2023, through March 1, 2024. Notifications of acceptance to the Festival will be sent April 4, 2024.
Artists must apply through ZAPPlication. Apply here.
Vendors interested in applying to Midsummer Festival of the Arts
Vendors interested in being part of the Festival can email MFA@jmkac.org for an application (available early 2024).
Past Artists
Ceramics
Bada Maloney, Deana
Elsinger, Cathy
Gaspar Hart, Joan
Hendrix, Kyle
Krause, Gordon
Krueger, Andrew
Lindner, Linda
Lovell, Kara
Natkin, Andryea
Nishitateno, Hironobu
Raschick, Rick
Robertson, Elizabeth
Robertson, Richard
Roethle, MaryAnne
Saheb Ekhtiari, Hosseinali & Rouhi, Maryam
Wells, Jean
Drawing
Brandl, Anthony
Compass, Liza
Dominguez, Paul
Strublic, Anthony
Wimmer, Annette
Fiber & Leather
Burke, Alyssa
Gereau, Kristin
Graf, Emily
Lee, Xao
Mattson, Rachel & Quella, Kaylin
Nolan, Kayla & Lindquist, Lori
Otterson, Susan
Raymond, Gwendi & Quispe Huaman, Wilber
Skenandore, Liandra
Tupesis, Nicole
VanAsten, Kate
Vosk, Lana
Glass
Easton, Tammy
Fujimoto, Sharon
Mote, Lisa
Rezin, Sara
Jewelry
Baade, Audra
Bahringer, Charles
Bailey, William & Bailey, Lisa
Bird, Chelsea
Burcham, Julie
Carreon, Claudia
Fairchild, Monika
Farra, Wayne
Houndsome, Jean
Jensen, Chris
Jingst, Shayna
Krahn, Nancy
Long, Hannah
Meznarich, Katie
Nunnelee, Jennifer
Qualley Peterson, Kate
Raml, Patti
Raven, Jan
Richter-O’Connell, Susan
Shaffer, Susan & Shaffer Jane
Shinnick, Emily
Stewartson, Stacey
Metal
Drizin, Joanie
Grenzow Mauer, Shari
Matyszczyk, Cliff
Radke, Debbie
Mixed Media
Barenz, Stephanie
Fraga, Eduin
Hart, Naomi
Ihlenfeldt, Tonja
McDill, Layl
Schnabl, Babs
Theobald, Rich
Painting
Fisher, Toril
Greentree, Kelli
McGee, Melvin
Mullen, Micah
Strobel, Vicki
Thomas, Christina
Tschida Petters, Kimberly
Watson-Newlin, Karen
Wilson, Channing
Photography & Digital Art
Bossenbroek, Nick
Franzen, Emiko & Franzen, Emiko
Hoynik, Joe
Littman, Susan
Merrill, Josh
Robleski, Chris & Robleski, Katie
Printmaking
Kaczkowski, Erin
Kosten, Andrew
Scheckel, Julia
Troller, Rita
Wood
Bemis, Richard
Debertin, Jack
Grob, Chad
Hechel, John & Hechel, Trudie
Krantz, Robert
Newton, Robert
Stevens, Jill
Ceramics
Boer-Henke, Diane
Corner, Sean
Elsinger, Cathy
Gaspar Hart, Joan
Hafemann, Amy
Hansen, Sarah
Hathaway, Alan
Hendrix, Kyle
Kaminski, Kate
Krause, Gordon
Lindner, Linda
McKinney, Rachel
Nishitateno, Hironobu
Raschick, Rick
Robertson, Elizabeth
Robertson, Richard
Rubinstein, Victoria
Wells, Jean
Drawing
Brandl, Anthony
Dominguez, F Paul
Hart, Naomi
Mayhew, Mays
Strublic, Anthony
Fiber & Leather
Esche-Lyon, Kaitlin
Graf, Emily
Lee, Xao
Mattson, Rachel & Quella, Kaylin
Otterson, Susan
Raymond, Gwendi & Quispe, Wilber
Snider, Tammy
Tupesis, Nicole
Wolf, Yuliya & Cieslinski, Kenzie
Glass
Fujimoto, Sharon
Hunt, Kathleen
Mote, Lisa
Rezin, Sara
Jewelry
Baade, Audra
Bailey, William & Lisa
Bird, Chelsea
Dawald, Jeff
Franzblau, Linda
Jingst, Shayna
Johnson, Marti
Nunnelee, Jennifer & J. Ward
Qualley Peterson, Kate
Raml, Patti
Raven, Jan
Richter-O’Connell, Susan
Shaffer, Jane & Susan
Sheahan, Meghan
Stewartson, Stacey
To, Regina
Wilson, Kim
Zach, Shane
Metal
Drizin, Joanie
Grenzow Mauer, Shari
Radke, Debbie
Yocco, Scott
Mixed Media
Barenz, Stephanie
Bevan, Jacqueline
Busch, John
Fraga, Eduin
Gebert, Annelies
Hager, Mary
Hart, Naomi
Heffron Neuhold, Isabella
Ihlenfeldt, Tonja
Knier, Maria
Lockwood, Terri
McDill, Layl
Reckhouse, Dave
Schnabl, Babs
Theobald, Rich
Painting
Ash, Bekah
Austin, Amy
Borman, Beki
Fisher, Toril
Hartsfield, Chris
Johnson, Jane
McGee, Melvin
Millonig, William
Pankratz, Adam
Strobel, Vicki & Anthony
Thomas, Christina
Tschida Petters, Kimberly
Watson-Newlin, Karen
Photography & Digital Art
Brown, Michael
Menaker, Igor
Merrill, Josh
Robleski, Chris & Katie
Skov, Toby
Printmaking
Biwer-Stewart, Lori
Scheckel, Julia
Souik, Jacob
Troller, Rita
Worth, Zachary
Wood
Bemis, Richard
Boris, Scott
Debertin, Jack
Englebert, Ken & Mary
Grob, Chad
Hechel, John & Trudie
Linn, Robert
Newton, Robert
Tyers, Thomas
