Location
Come tour the Artists Cemetery with Will Nixon (Acrostic Woodstock), Weston Blelock (WoodstockArts), and their guests, Laurie Ylvisaker and Mikhail Horowitz, for a morning of poetry, history, and personal reminiscences about people buried there, from the founders of the Arts Colony to beloved local figures who’ve passed on in recent years. Many remarkable stories lie under these headstones. We’ll do our best to bring some of them to life.
The walk will be on Saturday, August 20th from 10:00am-11:30am. Sign up at the library. Meet in the large parking lot off Rock City Road across from the Colony before Mountain View Avenue. From the parking lot it’s a short walk up to the Artists Cemetery.
Will Nixon is the author of Acrostic Woodstock and the co-author with Michael Perkins of The Pocket Guide to Woodstock and Walking Woodstock: Journeys into the Wild Heart of America’s Most Famous Small Town.
Weston Blelock is co-publisher of WoodstockArts, which has released Woodstock History and Hearsay by Anita Smith, Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, and most recently, Joseph Eckhardt’s Living Large: Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason, a prominent couple in the Arts Colony, who are now buried together in the Artists Cemetery.
Laurie Ylvisaker is a real estate agent who grandparents were the first full time residents of the Maverick, a cornerstone of the Arts Colony. Her grandfather, who lies in the cemetery, was a bestselling author and a collaborator with Joseph Campbell, the mythologist.
Mikhail Horowitz is a performer, poet, and former cultural czar of the Woodstock Times. Years ago, he composed a long poem about the Artists Cemetery, which he now describes as his favorite place in town in part because it is slowly gathering his old friends.
