Interview: Dana McClure, Artist, Designer and CoFounder of Ravenwood.
Welcome to our interview series on the Shelter Upstate Journal where we profile people who inspire us. Real people, real homes, real workspaces, real stories. This month we visited Dana McClure at her barn Ravenwood in Kerhonkson ahead of their upcoming art Spring gathering this June 10 and 11th. For more information and to purchase tickets go here.
Meet Dana ~ Artist, Designer, Mother and CoFounder of art and food experience Ravenwood NY.
Currently listening to: Wiser Than Me Podcast with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the lives of older women - a refreshing perspective.
Last reading: All My Puny Sorrows + Women Talking by Miriam Toews - she’s so good!
Recently Watching: Tiny Beautiful Things for Kathryn Hahn because I seem to love just about anything she’s in.
Venetia: What led you to move the Hudson Valley and raise your family here?
Dana: My background is in art + design and my husband Chris’s is in food + agriculture. We bought a house in Olivebridge in 2010 after 13 years together in Brooklyn. I wasn’t quite ready to leave but Chris was desperate for some land to start growing produce. (We had seriously maxed out our rooftop garden in Williamsburg.) For 5 years we went back and forth before committing to upstate full time. That was a crazy time living two very different lives. But looking back, I’m so glad we made the move because our home, business and community up here is more than I could have ever imagined.
Venetia: What do you see as the benefits and challenges of living here?
Dana: The benefits are many. Coming from the density and chaos of the city, I remember at first really being in awe of things we now take for granted – breathing in fresh air, a night sky full of stars, peace and quiet, the sound of frogs and crickets as we fall asleep, mountain views during daily drives over the Ashokan Reservoir.
The beauty of it all never gets old for me. The landscape has really made its way into my work as an artist and the heightened seasonality of this region informs how we work and live. Our green house fills up with seedlings every February, then maple tapping begins in our sugarbush, produce and flowers bloom from May through October and our kids get to tend to chickens and ducks all year round.
The challenges that come to mind are driving and lack of food options. We are pretty tucked away, equidistant from Woodstock, New Paltz + Kingston, so there’s no Main Street or town center close to us. It’s why we decided to create something ourselves. Now after 13 years, things are changing and new businesses are coming to the area. We’re excited for the change and shifting our business model in response to what else is available locally and what our top priorities are in terms of creative fulfillment.
Venetia: How did the idea for Ravenwood come about?
Dana: Ravenwood started as a dinner series in our Brooklyn apartment back in 2012. We were growing food upstate and then carting it back to the city to host under the radar 5-course meals with pairings for close friends. There would sometimes be an art element alongside the meal since our apartment was a huge live/work loft space. That soon became bigger with friends of friends and then creative teams from corporations, like Nike’s Innovation Kitchen, started to contact us for ‘food + art’ experiences. That was I guess the early beginnings of Ravenwood - trying to find ways for Chris and I to integrate our two worlds into a collaborative project and outlet on the side of our day jobs - him as a private chef + food stylist at the time and me as a designer and design professor. After we renovated an 1850s barn upstate, we began to use that as the backdrop for intimate farm dinners that started in 2015 and sat 30 guests at a time. This dinner series model continued through 2018 until we decided to shift our operations to a seasonal farm shop to encourage more inclusivity and larger crowds.
Venetia: Tell us a little about the history of the barn?
Dana: The barn was built in 1850 along with the farm house on the property. It was an old dairy barn and in pretty bad shape when we started renovating it back in 2012. It took three years of DIY efforts to get it to a place where we could finally invite people in. We see it as a constant work in progress and add new features to it slowly each year based on how we plan to make use of it.
Venetia: Do you have any advice for people who are interested in growing their own food/flowers?
Dana: It’s a lot of work, even as small-scale as our little operation is. We have so much respect for our neighboring growers and anyone really who is dedicated to agriculture. There’s so many variables that could go wrong that are completely out of your hands which makes each season drastically different from the one before. If the market element is taken out of the mix and you’re just growing for yourself, it’s a whole other ballgame. In that instance too though, it has to be a labor of love because it can be expensive and a major time commitment. We stick to it in some capacity each year because honestly I don’t think Chris would stay sane without it. It’s extremely cathartic for him, to grow something from seed to harvest – to nourish our family and friends and to regenerate the small piece of land we inhabit.
Venetia: How do you curate the items in your farm shop?
Dana: The second iteration of Ravenwood, from 2019 to 2022 was a weekly farm shop that integrated a produce stand, cafe, flower bar and art + design showcase. Most of what was being served or displayed was from within an hour of our barn if not from our own property. Chris’s menu was derived straight from our garden with seasonal rotations in sweet + savory pastries and salads. I made weekly floral bouquets from what we were growing and other nearby flower farmers. The art + design showcase featured the work of friends and NY-based artisans – lots of ceramics, textiles, and favorite items for kitchen, garden and home. Much of the collection is still available on our site and we’ll be keeping many staples in place as our model shifts once again.
Venetia: How are you doing things differently at Ravenwood this year?
Dana: For 2023, we’ve planned a big pivot. This year will be our 8th in the barn after many iterations – from intimate dinners to weekend farm shop gatherings. With the rapid growth in our region and creative pursuits calling us, we thought it was time to shake things up once again. At its core, Ravenwood has always been collaborative in spirit and a chance to bring our two worlds together with an ever-growing community. This year, in lieu of weekly openings, we’ll be hosting a few big seasonal gatherings that celebrate creative exchange inspired by Art + Food.
Venetia: Tell us a little bit about your art and your process?
Dana: I’ve been working as an artist + designer professionally and academically since 2003. For over a decade I taught undergraduate classes at Parsons + NYU which emphasized cross-disciplinary approaches to the creative process. My studio practice has always been hybrid in form as well, creating mixed-media pieces that integrate painting, photography and collage. I like to go back and forth between tactile exploration and digital manipulation. Some work can begin with a photograph I’ve taken and others from scraps of painted paper or watercolor experiments. Each new series has a distinct visual language from the one before and I like the idea of extending this variation and reinvention to the showcases we’ll be presenting in the barn at Ravenwood. Curating group shows that create a dialog between different mediums (painting, sculpture, fiber art etc.) is similar to the way I work individually. It’s exciting to think up new ways for collaborations to take place within our space to inspire creative exchange and a deeper connection to our surroundings.
Venetia: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Dana: Since moving upstate, the landscape has played a larger role in my work which previously was more focused entirely on form + abstraction during my years in the city. Mother nature is fierce. We’ve learned that while trying to grow food and raise animals. The cycle of growth and decay can be beautifully delicate and slow at times but then also dark and tumultuous. It’s that stark dichotomy that draws me to the natural world as a subject in my work. It’s shapes and textures and ever-shifting palette are a constant source of inspiration and the closer and longer I explore my surroundings, the more they reveal to me.
Venetia: What's a typical work day like for you?
Dana: Every day is different lately. Ideally, I’d work on new pieces in the studio daily but if I’m lucky that happens a few times a week. I used to be a night owl and love when everyone else went to sleep so I could keep going without interruptions, but now with kids and a busy work schedule pulling me in a lot of directions, I need to steal time for myself in the morning before the rest of my family starts their day. So, my alarm goes off at 4:45. I try to squeeze in some writing, movement and self-care before 7am when the rest of the house wakes up. My days are filled with a mix of Ravenwood and Studio responsibilities before shutting it all down when the kids come home to be as present as possible for them.
Venetia: How has being a mother influenced you as an artist/business owner?
Dana: Being a mother has turned everything on its head as I’m sure most mothers would say. How could it not? Losing track of time and endless hours in the studio are a luxury of the past and I’m still wondering when I might get that back. But I’ve learned to steal the time when I can and prioritize a commitment to making work consistently, even with no end results to show for it sometimes. Too much time away from my art practice always creates chaos in other areas of my life. I want my children to see me doing what I love most, so I use that as motivation to get me back in the studio even when it’s really tough. I love when they create along side me and hope they don’t ever tire of that. I feel the same about making sure they see us (and join us) in growing food, tapping trees, raising animals and running the barn space when it’s full of people. I’d say that having children makes pursuing creative endeavors even more essential and vital because the most important humans in my life are watching and learning from it all.
Venetia: What are some of your hobbies and interests?
Dana: Who has time for those anymore? There’s not a lot of leisure in our lives at the moment except for those rare serendipitous moments when its magic hour on a perfect spring evening and the kids are playing in garden and all just seems right with the world. I try to savor those minutes when they go by. But if free time was back on the table, I would travel MUCH more and stay in some stunning interiors which is always inspiring and a treat for me.
Venetia: What are some of your favorite places in the Hudson Valley for food/shopping/activities etc?
Dana: Many of our friends are fellow small business owners in the area. There are too many to list them all but here, but here are a few of our favorites…
Kingston Standard - brewery + restaurant
Upstate Table - Educational Kitchen + Event Space in Kingston
Eleven Six - Knitwear Retail Showcase
L’Impatience - Ceramics at the Fuller Building
Skatetime - Accord Skate Rink by Bjorn Qorn
Darlings - Comfort Food in Tilson
Ollies - Pizza in High Falls
Venetia: What do you have on your Ravenwood playlist?
Dana: In the barn, during open hours, we have a playlist that rotates a really eclectic mix of our favorite tunes that make us feel up and relaxed. There’s no rhyme or reason or specific genre, just what feels good – John Fahey, Kurt Vile, Cass McCombs, John Maus, Grouper, Dominique Dumont, Cate Le Bon, Eleanor Friedberger, Herbie Mann, Sebadoh, Nick Drake, Boards of Canada, Cat Power, Woodie Guthrie, Lucy Dacus, Cocteau Twins… it’s all over the place but creates a nice vibe to work in.
Learn more about Dana at danamcclure.com
Interview by Venetia Boucher. Images by Winona Barton-Ballentine.