Feature image: Wayside Days at the Art Preserve, 2025.
Wayside Days 2026
Dates: Friday, September 18 & Saturday, September 19
Locations: John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Art Preserve
Rain date for Saturday’s outdoor events: Sunday, September 20
Please refer to jmkac.org for parking and shuttle information.
Submitted
Sheboygan, WI – Some journeys take billions of years. Others unfold over a few miles. This year, Wayside Days invites the community to follow one such journey as 79 rocks make their way through Sheboygan and toward their final home at the Art Preserve. Envisioned by artists Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis as a continuation of their work, the rock procession invites the community to experience the connections between art, nature, place, and community. Taking place Friday, September 18, and Saturday, September 19, 2026, Wayside Days celebrates these connections through a series of free events, including live music and performance, hands-on artmaking, and opportunities to gather at the Art Preserve.
The journey begins on Friday, September 18, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center Theatre. Geologist and Lawrence University professor Marcia Bjornerud will explore the remarkable histories held within the stones featured in Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis: Rock Fade (≈ 45 Billion Years). Bjornerud will translate some of the stories embedded in these time-traveling rocks during an evening program featuring remarks from the artists of Rock Fade, a brief Q&A, and refreshments. The program is part of the Wisconsin Historical Society History Makers Tour.
On Saturday morning, the journey continues as artists Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis’s installation Rock Fade (≈ 45 Billion Years) moves to the Art Preserve with a Rock Procession from 9:00 a.m. to noon. As a continuation of the multi-phase installation envisioned by the artists, the 79 rocks featured in Rock Fade (≈ 45 Billion Years) will make their way from the John Michael Kohler Arts Center to their permanent home at the Art Preserve. Each rock will make the approximately 3-mile journey in its own unique way, beginning with the smallest stone carried by a child and culminating with the largest stone transported on a flatbed truck. Along the way, the procession will transform the movement of the artwork into a community experience, inviting participants to witness and take part in their passage through the city.
Following the Saturday morning rock procession, the celebration continues at the Art Preserve, with food trucks beginning at noon, followed by an afternoon of music, performance, artmaking, and community gathering from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. as the Levitt AMP Sheboygan Music Series concludes its summer season.
At 1:00 p.m., House of DOV: Circle of Apathy‘s dance performance featuring live music from Family Junket will bring an immersive combination of dance and live music to the Art Preserve’s upper meadow. The new collaboration explores the cycles of growth, decay, and interconnection found in nature. Through evolving physical structures, dynamic movement, and layered soundscapes, the artists consider the human body as both a reflection of and participant in the natural world. Over the course of the performance, seven dancers interact with increasingly precarious structures while five musicians create a richly layered soundscape of soul, ambience, strings, horns, percussion, looping textures, and improvisation.
At 2:45 p.m., Family Junket takes the stage with its blend of neo-soul, funk, and R&B. The Chicago-based collective of musicians and multidisciplinary artists creates healing, community-centered performances through lush and unpredictable compositions. Their debut album, Did You Tell the Bees?, was released in 2025 and has been featured by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, and City Cast Chicago.
Throughout the afternoon, visitors can enjoy food and beverages while exploring the Art Preserve grounds and participating in hands-on artmaking activities, including Wish You Were Here, a mixed-media postcard project that combines collage materials and sewing machines.
Wayside Days draws inspiration from Wisconsin’s tradition of waysides—places along the road where travelers pause, stretch their legs, share a meal, and take in their surroundings before continuing their journey. Whether gathering at the Art Preserve for music and performance or simply taking time to explore, Wayside Days invites the community to pause, follow a new path, and discover what can happen when art and life intersect along the way.
Wayside Days is supported by the Kohler Trust for the Arts and Education, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, the Frederic Cornell Kohler Charitable Trust, Kohler Foundation, Inc., the Melitta S. and Joan M. Pick Charitable Trust, the Bert L. and Patricia S. Steigleder Charitable Trust, the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the generous support of our members and donors.
An additional thank you to our Levitt AMP Sheboygan Summer Music Series Presenting Sponsors Acuity, Sargento, and WOMT-98.9 and contributing sponsors City of Sheboygan, Meijer, GrandStay Residential Suites, Festival Foods, Bank First, and Blue Harbor Resort.
A special thank you to Laura Kohler and Steve Proudman.
We are also grateful for the support of Curt G. Joa, Inc., Wisconsin Public Service Foundation, 4imprint, Encore Luxury Apartments, Rockline Industries, 3 Sheeps Brewing Company, Lakeside Pepsi, and Arrosto Delicatessen.
The Levitt AMP Sheboygan Music Series is supported in part by the Levitt Family Foundation, which partners with changemakers and nonprofits to strengthen the social fabric of communities in America through free, live music in outdoor public spaces. In 2026, the Levitt Family Foundation is supporting over 900 free concerts in 90+ towns and cities across the country, bringing joy to over a million people. www.levitt.org.
About the Art Preserve
The Art Preserve opened in 2021 and is the world’s only collection space dedicated to art environments. Located a short drive from the Arts Center on 38 acres of land, the 56,000-square-foot, three-story building gives visitors unprecedented access and insight into the preservation, conservation, and interpretation of artist- built and artist home-based environments through tableaux and curated, visible storage. JMKAC’s permanent collection of more than 38,000 works includes complete and partial environments created by more than 30 artists, housed at the Art Preserve. Highlights of JMKAC’s collection include the largest institutional collections of Dr. Charles Smith and Eugene Von Bruenchenhein; the expansive home collections of Chicago Imagists Ray Yoshida, Roger Brown, and Barbara Rossi; Emery Blagdon’s “Healing Machine” art environment, housed in a reconstruction of its original shed; and a diverse collection of 20th- and 21st-century artworks and artifacts from China to Laos, Thailand, and the U.S. that reflect the diasporic experiences of HMong, Miao, and other cultural groups represented in JMKAC’s local community. In addition to those at the Art Preserve, JMKAC is site steward to several art environments including Mary Nohl’s lakefront home in Fox Point, Wisconsin, in which the artist transformed every aspect of the property into a comprehensive work of art.
About the John Michael Kohler Arts Center
Founded in 1967, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) is a nonprofit creative hub that supports the work of contemporary artists through original exhibitions, commissions, residencies, publications, and community programming across visual and performing arts. JMKAC was recently ranked No. 6 on ARTnews’s list of the 30 Best Art Museums in the United States, recognizing the institution among the country’s leading art museums. The only institution in the world that collects artist-built and artist home-based environments, JMKAC is a leading center for the research, preservation, and presentation of artists with wide-ranging practices and backgrounds from academically trained to self-taught and folk traditions, championing long-term relationships with artists and elevating work that has often been overlooked or under-recognized. JMKAC is a vital cultural resource that responds to the needs of its local and regional communities, preserving artistic heritage by uplifting contemporary voices and empowering future generations.
Hours
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Thursday: 10:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.
Saturday, Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Locations
John Michael Kohler Arts Center: 608 New York Avenue, Sheboygan, WI
Art Preserve: 3636 Lower Falls Road, Sheboygan, WI
Contact
Emily Shedal, Communications Specialist, JMKAC
Eshedal@jmkac.org