Image: Art Preserve, Sheboygan
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is preparing to host the 56th Midsummer Festival of the Arts on July 18 and 19, 2026, with the free weekend event set to unfold on the grounds of the Arts Center and Sheboygan’s City Green. The festival runs Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., bringing together more than 100 juried artists, live music, hands-on artmaking, food trucks, and an emerging artist area.
According to the Arts Center, the festival is a long-running regional event that draws thousands of attendees and artists. The 2026 edition is organized around a mix of art sales, performances, demonstrations, and public participation, with original work offered in categories including ceramics, painting, photography, metal, fiber, watercolor, wood, jewelry, and more. The institution describes the weekend as free and family-friendly.
Live music will be presented through the Levitt AMP Sheboygan Music Series on the City Green stage. The lineup listed on the festival page includes Frogwater & Lil’ Rev on Saturday at 11:00 a.m., Larry & Joe on Saturday at 2:00 p.m., The Cactus Blossoms on Sunday at 11:00 a.m., and Copper Box on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. The site also notes strolling performances across the grounds from artists including Jess Clark, Flow Artists Jamie Reichardt and Logan Bonner, Sarah Masarik, and Warped Dance Company.
The festival’s hands-on activities are tied to the Arts Center’s current exhibition programming. Visitors will be invited to make Stone Mosaic Tiles in the Festival Green Activities Tent, using rocks, pebbles, and sand, and to build Wrapped Rock Assemblages with natural materials. Inside the Arts Center’s Social STUDIO, Geornica Daniels will lead a collaborative papier-mâché boulder-building project inspired by Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis’ ‘Rock Fade’.
The Arts Center is also using the festival to introduce five emerging regional artists: Brianna Stehling Santacruz, Amanda Langer, Cassandra Xiong, Jade Pergl, and Matthew Braunginn. The website says the initiative is intended to make arts festivals more accessible to emerging artists. Artist talks with the group are scheduled for Friday, July 17, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at Paradigm Coffee & Music.
Individual artist pages on the Arts Center website sketch out the range of practices represented in the emerging artist area. Stehling Santacruz is described as a Colombian-American visual artist working across 2D and 3D practices; Langer’s practice grew out of ecological restoration and landscaping with native plants; Xiong works as a collagist, poet, zine-maker, and workshop facilitator; Pergl focuses on themes of femininity, magic, and imagination in painting on sheer fabrics; and Braunginn describes his work as non-objective, contextual abstract expressionism developed after he began painting in 2017.
Festival details on the Arts Center site also list 16 food trucks, an open cafe with a limited menu, beverage options including beer, hard seltzer, wine, sangria, soda, and bottled water, and a note that food and nonalcoholic carry-ins are welcome. The institution says the event will take place at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Sheboygan’s City Green, with applications for artists, food vendors, and bands handled through separate channels for future editions.
