Mapping the Sawkill Watershed Project: art, ecology, and free community events along the Creek. Learn more.
M a p p i n g T h e S a w k i l l W a t e r s h e d P r o j e c t
A Yearlong Community Initiative Connecting Art, Ecology, and Stewardship Along Woodstock’s Historic Creek
Focusing on an eight-mile-long riparian corridor of the Sawkill Creek, Mapping the Sawkill Watershed Project is a diverse ecological exploration and celebration of the land. Led by artist Jennifer Zackin, this yearlong community initiative, focused on relationship-building, encompasses a series of participatory sensory workshops, walking tours, a Stream Steward program, community mapping sessions, and an art exhibition (see events calendar below), all taking place in 2026. All events are free and open to the public.
The project kicked off March 14, 2026, at Mountain View Studio in Woodstock, NY, where more than 100 people gathered in support of the Creek and this initiative. Featuring a keynote address by Judy Abbott (Munsee Lenape), the event brought together local scientists, artists, community members and introduced the new Sawkill Stream Steward program. Local Stream Stewards are being trained to survey key features of the stream, enabling them to assess erosion and habitat quality for fish and invertebrates, measure water chemistry, and document change over time. The program seeks to cultivate long-term stewardship while deepening the public's relationship with the watershed.
This initiative is significant because the Sawkill Creek serves as a vital ecological artery for the Hudson Valley, covering a 42-square-mile watershed from Echo Lake in Woodstock into the Esopus and finally into the Hudson River. The watershed connects communities, ecosystems, and drinking water resources throughout the region. As climate disruption increases droughts, flooding, erosion, and habitat loss, understanding and caring for local waterways has become increasingly important.
The project will culminate in an exhibition at the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum (WAAM) from October 23 through November 29, 2026. At the center of the exhibition will be a woven sculptural topographical map of the Sawkill creek bed by Jennifer Zackin, incorporating data collected by the Stream Stewards alongside research, mapping, and community-generated knowledge developed throughout the year. Together, these elements will offer visitors an opportunity to experience the Sawkill watershed through both artistic and ecological perspectives.
With Mapping the Sawkill Watershed Project, Jennifer Zackin partners with the Woodstock Land Conservancy’s Ecologies of Water program, the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum (WAAM) social practice artist-in-residence program, the Town of Woodstock’s Drinking Water Source Protection Program (DWSP2), and the Woodstock community in collaboration with Sawkill Creek. Contributors include Beth Reichheld, Mary McNamara, Patty Goodwin, Miranda Javid, Mark Vian, Telemak Olson, and Sally Rogers of the Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program. The initiative is made possible through a grant from Arts Mid-Hudson and the support of local volunteer stewards co-collaborating with the Sawkill Creek.
M a p p i n g t h e S a w k i l l S e n s o r y W o r k s h o p S e r i e s & E v e n t s
ALL WORKSHOPS & EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Please RSVP
06/20/26,12PM – 1PM
Summer Solstice: Celebrating the Second Chakra & Water with Linda Mary Montano, BRING YOGA MAT
The Mothership Gallery, 6 Sgt Richard Quinn Drive, Woodstock NY 12498
06/20/26, 3PM - 5PM
Playing The Sawkill an Interactive Orchestra with Dreiky Caprice,
WEAR WATER SHOES
Comeau Property, 95 Comeau Drive, Woodstock, NY 12498
- meet in parking lot by the kiosk
06/23/26, 4PM-6PM
Summit to Stream: Building a Resilient Watershed Together with the Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program
Woodstock Library, 10 Dixon Ave, Woodstock NY 12498
(This event includes a mapping activity)
07/11/26, 12PM – 1:30PM
Meditative Painting at the Fontyne Kill with Coryn Nadeau (WLC)
Zena Cornfield, Zena Road, Woodstock, NY 12498
07/18/26, 11:30AM – 1PM
The Many Voices of a River: Listening and Field Recording the Sawkill River with Zaneta
Comeau Property, 95 Comeau Drive, Woodstock, NY 12498
- meet in parking lot by the kiosk
07/26/26, 11:00AM -1:00PM
Rick Volz Field, Dixon Ave, Woodstock, NY 12498
- meet in parking lot
08/01/26, 12:00PM
Macroinvertebrate Photography with Frank Beres (WLC)
Zena Cornfield, Zena Road, Woodstock, NY 12498
DATE-TBC, 11:00AM -1:00PM
Sawkill Walking Tour #2: Explore the Comeau Property with Beth Reicheld. Comeau Property, 95 Comeau Drive, Woodstock, NY 12498
- meet in parking lot by the kiosk
09/12/26, 1:00PM - 3:00PM
Citizen Science Microbial Cultivation Workshop with Adam Zaretsky
The Mothership Gallery, 6 Sgt Richard Quinn Drive, Woodstock NY 12498
09/17/26, 4:00PM-7:00PM
Community Mapping Session
Woodstock Land Conservancy Office, 74 Mill Hill Rd, Woodstock, NY
09/26/26, 11:00AM -1:30PM
Sawkill Walking Tour #3: Explore little deep to big deep with Beth Reicheld. Little Deep parking lot, Zena Road, Woodstock, NY 12498
- meet in parking lot
10/03/26, Time & Location TBC
Riparian Buffer planting along a section of the Sawkill with Andrew Faust
Location TBC
10/17/26, 11:00AM
Histories Of The Sawkill Through Human Impacts (WLC)
Historical Society of Woodstock, 20 Comeau Drive, Woodstock, NY 12498
10/23/26 -11/29/26
Mapping The Sawkill Exhibition
Woodstock Artist Association Museum (WAAM), 28 Tinker St, Woodstock, NY 12498
COORDINATING TEAM BIOS
Jennifer Zackin, Project Coordinator:
Jennifer Zackin is a transdisciplinary artist and educator based in the Hudson Valley, New York and the Sacred Valley of the Inca, Cusco, Peru. Zackin's close engagement with materials creates moments of alchemy, transforming the familiar into the unexpected. Her practice begins in the studio and expands into the community, nurturing relationships, supporting regenerative methods, and honoring the performance of art-life. Working across sculpture, installation, performance, collaboration, drawing, painting, photography, and social sculpture, Zackin explores abstraction as a gateway to understanding complex ecosystems and ecological systems. In her “Soil Series,” she creates vibrant abstract compositions that explore the elemental forces of biodiversity. Her practice has included upcycling burlap coffee bags into trellises for medicinal plants grown for the public’s use, wrapping a grove of trees with brightly colored rope to draw our attention to unseen relationships among the living world, and crafting absorbent salvaged-material sculptures to clean up toxic oil spills. Zackin's work has been exhibited in museums nationally and worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Zacheta National Art Gallery in Warsaw, Poland, and she has received commissions from institutions including the Katonah Museum of Art, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Socrates Sculpture Park, and MASS MoCA. She is the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships and residencies, including Arts Mid-Hudson, Art Omi, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture. Zackin and her partner Adolfo Ibañez founded the Chokechaka Artist Residency Program in the Sacred Valley of the Inca, Cusco, Peru.
Beth Reichheld, Stream Steward Volunteer Coordinator
Beth Reichheld served as director of the NYC DEP Stream Management Program (SMP) for 30+ years, working with county soil and water conservation districts (SWCDs) managing rivers and floodplains throughout the Catskills using an approach that reduces erosion and flood risks, protects infrastructure, and improves habitats and water quality. In collaboration with those living and working in the Catskills, the SMP and SWCDs built a science-based and proactive stream-stewardship ethic and implemented stream restoration projects on dozens of miles of Catskill streams. Beth has served on the Woodstock Land Conservatory board, the Woodstock zoning and comprehensive planning committees and helped develop the Catskills’ wetland and watercourse ordinance. Before coming to the Catskills in 1992, Beth earned her bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Bowdoin College and a master's degree in forest science from Yale.
Mark Vian, Stream Steward Scientist Mentor
Mark Vian worked as a river restoration ecologist with the NYCDEP Stream Management Program for 28 years, helping to define and implement management plans for Stony Clove Creek, Westkill Creek, Upper Rondout Creek, and the Upper Neversink River. Prior to his work with the NYCDEP, Mark worked for the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve and as field manager for the monthly water quality monitoring at the Reserve's four tidal wetland research sites, as well as a number of synoptic storm event sampling projects on the tributaries that feed them. He serves as Principal at Deep Stream Tracking, which applies animal-tracking methodology to the study of rivers and streams. He has lived within earshot of the Kaaterskill Creek on the eastern escarpment of the Catskills since 2006.
Telemak Olsen, Stream Steward Scientist Mentor
Telemak (Telly) Olsen is a geologist specializing in river systems and earth-science education. He has contributed to geoscientific research in landscape response to wildfire, surface exposure dating, and tectonics. Telly currently supervises the SUNY Ulster Watershed Conservation Corps internship program in partnership with New York City DEP's Stream Management Program. He has a B.A. in Geoscience from Skidmore College and a M.S. in Geology from Western Washington University. Outside of streams, Telly enjoys playing with his two cats, George and Dookou, and mountain biking in the Catskills.