Craigardan Capital Campaign

for a community

Craigardan is a nonprofit arts organization and educational working farm that leverages collective creativity for social good.

We bring people together for place-based and interdisciplinary learning, providing creative residencies, courses, and events that span diverse artistic and knowledge disciplines in order to foster curiosity, inquiry, and collaboration.

new campus

campus design by architect Nils Luderowski

Leadership

CAMPAIGN ADVISORS

Susan Bacot-Davis

Elena Borstein

Diane Fish

Jim Herman

Dave Mason

Vinny McClelland

Scott McClelland

Lea Paine Highet

Stephanie Ratcliffe

Mark Shapiro

Pete Suttmeier

Sam Taylor

Aaron Woolf

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Mary Barringer, president

Allison Eddy, vicepresident

Lorene Garrett, treasurer

Kate Moses, secretary

Ronald Banaszek

Story Bellows

Austin Frerick

Muriel Luderowski

Loren Michael Mortimer

David Speert

STAFF

Michele Drozd, executive director

Emma Ainsworth

Theresa-Xuan Bui

“Although there are many places where people working in different media might encounter each other at meals or in more formal exchanges, I think the size of Craigardan and the way that collaboration and interdisciplinary connection are built into the mission really allow that to happen to a much greater degree than any place I’ve ever been.

The sense of the particular lodged within and allowing for a larger field of inquiry seems a very important and precious part of Craigardan. This is echoed by its being grounded in a very specific place, with a history and climate and landscape and local concerns particular to where it is, while at the same time welcoming and encouraging perspectives from beyond the place that homes it. Those multiple perspectives are a wonderful part of Craigardan.”

Mary Barringer

Vision

Craigardan is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission to encourage the human imagination to interpret the world with philosophical, ecological, and artistic perspective.

We envision an Adirondack region defined by its makers who are committed to the development of sustainable systems that integrate the needs of human communities with the integrity of the natural world.

WHAT WE DO

Craigardan supports ceramic, literary, visual, and performance artists, as well as farmers, chefs, activists, scholars, and researchers from the Adirondack region and around the world. We cultivate a dynamic that amplifies each individual’s work and activates collective creativity within the community. We believe that fostering the interaction between artists and the local public is as important as providing sheltered time to artists to further their creative practices.

As an organization deeply rooted in this region’s unique history, Craigardan exists at the nexus of processes (re)making this region’s present and future: environmental conservation, the resurgence of small farms, rural economic revitalization, and cultural/social activism.

By developing interdependent connections within our local Adirondack community, we nurture a deep sense of place through people, culture, food, stories, and the exchange of ideas and skills. With a built-in focus on equitable exchange across a wide range of disciplines, Craigardan offers an experience that ties the creative process to larger contexts. This experience leads to new questions and new initiatives; and it generates positive social change through collective creativity.

Growth

A NEW CAMPUS

First opened in 2017, Craigardan was quickly outgrowing the original campus location when we unexpectedly found ourselves having to relocate in 2019. We imagined the possibilities for expanding our international, interdisciplinary arts program and increasing its positive impact on the region. During the first two years Craigardan hosted over 500 local participants -- in a town with a year-round population of 1100 people. This record attendance showed that our programming fills a void of cultural and artistic resources. Our search for a new home affirmed Craigardan’s mission to support a wider diversity of artists and scholars, offer more classes to the community, and present greater opportunities for dialogue and learning between visiting artists-inresidence and the public.

In only three months we raised $600,000 to fund a region-wide search and the final purchase of 320 acres bordering state lands between the towns of Keene and Elizabethtown. This recently-logged property included a small farmhouse, a few sheds, and many wonderful multi-use trails, but no other useable buildings. Since our purchase in July 2019, we have raised over $2.3M to complete the design and permitting of the new campus, renovate the farmhouse into our new Farm Store, launch a community farm program, build a teaching and working barn, construct 6 modern artist cabins and bath house, build roads and infrastructure, install underground utilities, turn skidder tracks into trails, build a timber frame kiln pavilion and wood kiln, and build the new studio barn.

We seek to raise an additional $3.5 million to finish the construction of our new, Adirondack-specific, universally accessible campus for the creative arts and to provide Craigardan’s rich, interdisciplinary, year-round programming to our region’s communities. To do this, we are asking for your support.

Financials

THE $3.5 MILLION GOAL WILL FUND

The construction of MAIN, a universally accessible, energy efficient core campus building. This will be the main entrance to the campus and house our offices, public event space, community classroom/meeting room, commercial teaching kitchen, studio kitchen, and professional gallery // $1,500,000

The construction of HOME, a universally accessible, energy efficient core campus buildings to house visiting artists and scholars, summer interns, program participants, and other regional visitors. This two-story building will also include a cathedral living/gathering space, laundry facilities, and accessible bathrooms // $1,200,000

The construction of STUDIO, a universally accessible, energy efficient core campus building purposefully designed for our unique interdisciplinary program. Studio will provide community classrooms, clay studios, private writing studios, flex and performance studios, and spaces for visual artists in all media // $800,000

Each of the main campus buildings was designed by renowned Adirondack architect Nils Luderowski

“At Craigardan I experienced the unparalleled bliss of time to focus on my work, to write and think amidst extraordinary beauty. Just seeing the Adirondack mountains outside my window lifted my spirits every dawn, when I sat down to write. ”

Jennifer Steil

“I’m grateful to Craigardan for an incredible experience that changed my life. Sharing a farmhouse with three working writers, dedicated to our solitary craft, gave me permission to call myself a writer.”

Lorene Garrett

Purchased

320 acres for multi-use stewardship

Reinvested

$80K

In local social impact programs

Programs

Craigardan built a reputation for offering high-quality interdisciplinary programs for all ages that nurture the creative process and strengthen ideas of place, purpose and community. The new campus expands what we can do.

• Artist Residencies: offering full support of up to 18 artists and scholars at a time, at any stage of their career, who would benefit from the time and space to further their work at our Adirondack campus.

• Community Classes: all levels of pottery, cooking and baking, agriculture, and artist-specific offerings.

• Public Lecture Series: a free weekly series of artist talks and research presentations on a wide range of topics.

• Wood Kiln Firings: a regular event that brings together Craigardan artists-in-residence and local community members with food, ritual, camaraderie, hard work, and the shared goal of firing the artwork of our potters.

• Workshops: single and multi-day immersive retreats and week-long kids camps taught by experts in their field.

• International: In 2019 Craigardan partnered with the Gangivecchio estate in Sicily to offer the first of our international educational retreats.

• Summits and Events: Craigardan partners with regional leaders to present an annual food justice summit, Feed Back. We hold annual empty bowl food pantry fundraisers, community makers days, and food justice dinners, and ground breaking workshops with the Racial Equity Institute.

• Gallery Openings and Performances: Past themes have included Playing in Earnest: A Life of W.H. Auden in Songs, Neo-Shamanism and its Discontents, Traditional Andean Weaving, Climate Change and Adaptive Food Culture.

• Internship Programs: educational opportunities for emerging artists, farmers and scholars including a farm + food and studio internship.

• Community Farm: In 2021 Craigardan launched a new community farm. The farm’s innovative programs allow the public to trade food scraps for free eggs and volunteer time for a free weekly farm share. We offer workshops and handson educational experiences for families each week. Plus, the program provides 100% profits to farmers who sell their products in our Farm Store, free food shares to families in need, and a 24/7 free food fridge.

Impact

If you signed up for a pottery or cooking class, attended the annual food justice summit, stoked the wood kiln, listened to a free public talk, dropped your kids off at clay camp, or joined us for a community dinner, you know how special and important Craigardan became to our region in a very short time.

If you’re a writer, potter, chef, scholar, photographer, performing artist, or young farmer who benefitted from the gifts of time, space, and support that our residency program offers, you know how magical a residency at Craigardan is for the creative process.

If you live or visit the Adirondacks, you’re a part of our local food system and you’ve seen the positive effects of our work with partners throughout the region. We continue to help lead the effort to strengthen our local food economy, increase access to healthy local food, and support local farmers and food producers.

We opened Craigardan’s doors in 2017 and within six years we founded a truly place-based arts center for the Adirondacks with an innovative board of directors, supportive donor base, dedicated family of over 265 artist alumni from around the world and more than 4000 local program participants. We inspired similar program concepts at other organizations throughout the region and partnered with numerous for- and non-profit organizations to further our collective work toward social good.

“Craigardan gave me the space and the tools to let my mind open and dive into a deeper exploration of myself and the world around me. It turned my life upside down in the best possible way.”

Katharine Wyatt

“While at Craigardan, I felt a sense of motivation - that there were people on my team, and that the process of doing the work was valuable in-and-of-itself. The end product was less important than the process and the act of sharing that process. Which is very valuable in a residency.”

Jeff Mertz

Imagine what we could do together

ACCOUNTABILITY

Craigardan occupies the Indigenous lands and waters of the Kanienʼkehá:ka people, keepers of the Eastern Door of the Six Nations Rotinoshoni. We acknowledge that Kanienʼkehá:ka people still safeguard the mountains, valleys, rivers, and lakes of Kohserà:ke, as their ancestors had done for millennia. We bring our minds together as one as we give our greetings and our thanks to the Kanienʼkehá:ka people and their relatives among the Six Nations for being on their land today.

We affirm our obligations to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. We honor the Great Law of Peace and Indigenous treaties that made these lifegiving spaces a shared “dish with one spoon” with Wabanaki and Anishinaabe peoples who have held these lands as sacred since time immemorial.

in a decade.

We recognize our Indigenous neighbors at Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, Ganienkeh Territory, Kanatsiohareke Mohawk Community, Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, Mohawks of Kanesatake, Oneida Indian Nation, Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi, the Koasek Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation, Elnu Abenaki Tribe, the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe, and the Abenakis at Odanak as the original stewards of the land and their past, present, and future connections to their sacred spaces within the Adirondack Park.

We accept responsibility for deceptive land sales and broken treaties that enabled non-Native settlers to establish a farm now called Craigardan on Indigenous land more than two centuries ago. We commit ourselves to healing the intergenerational traumas of colonization, racial discrimination, and environmental degradation through mutually beneficial alliances with our Indigenous neighbors to build sustainable systems that integrate the needs of human communities with the integrity of the natural world.

Legacy

Your support will leave a legacy that brings opportunities for creative exchange to our communities. Together we will connect the history and vibrancy of the Adirondacks with the diversity of the world’s brightest artists and thinkers.

THE NEW CAMPUS WILL:

• Provide the setting for Craigardan’s classes, workshops, kid’s camps, lectures and events that enrich the lives of adults and children in our rural communities.

• Welcome artists and scholars of all ages, skills and cultures to further their work and expand their creative process while in-residence at Craigardan.

• Allow creative professionals to access the tools, materials, time, and support they need to collaborate across disciplines in a setting that encourages them to view the world and their work with philosophical, ecological, and artistic perspective.

• Provide Adirondackers with a home for creative expression and learning with unprecedented opportunities to exchange skills and ideas with artists and thinkers of national and international renown.

• Include housing for up to 20 visiting residents and interns; studios for creative innovation in the arts; a community farm for year-round culinary research, food production, and education; a center for classrooms, events, and gallery exhibitions, and multi-use trails that allow for exploration and recreation.

• Preserve and steward all 320 acres for generations to come under the guidance of conservation professionals and best practices for careful and sensitive use of wild lands.

• 2017: Receive nonprofit status, renovate buildings, and open Craigardan’s doors in Keene.

• 2019: Move from Keene and conduct region-wide property search, launch a capital campaign, and purchase 320 acres in Elizabethtown.

• 2019-2021: work with state agencies, architects and engineers to design a program-specific master plan for Craigardan that preserves and stewards the character of the land. Write a strategic plan and continue the capital campaign, raising over $1.5 million.

• 2020: Renovate and open the Farm Store and gallery. Renovate the outbuildings and historic cabin. Launch the new Community Farm.

• 2021: build a road to our new campus site. Begin adding the infrastructure necessary to construct the full campus. Build a new barn and multiple artist cabins. Welcome our first group of summer resident interns.

• 2022: Reopen summer artist residencies and support the work of over 60 artists and scholars.

• 2023: Complete Main Campus infrastructure. Build the second studio barn, kiln pavilion and wood kiln. Support more than 70 artists and scholars.

• 2024: Begin construction of the MAIN campus building which will allow year-round programming.

• 2025: Build the STUDIO building to support local, national, and international artists.

• 2026: Build the final campus building, the new universally accessible HOME for program participants including artists-in-residence, workshop attendees, interns, and partnering schools.

Artists

Supporting the work of artists and scholars brings cultural and educational vibrancy to our rural communities. Meet a few of our past artists:

Name/Media: The Space We Make, multidisciplinary performance company / NYC and Maine

Residency: Summer 2017 place-based group residency

Inward/Community Engagement: TSWM produced two filmed performance pieces, one original work and one that chronicled their time in-residence. TSWM also taught a series of workshops open to fellow residents and to the general public that focused on themes of building (creating) to last, the composition of movement, technology as a lens, and identity through sound.

Name/Media: Renqian Yang, ceramics / NY

Residency: Summer 2018 studio arts residency

Inward/Community Engagement: Ren came to Craigardan to merge her many artistic disciplinesincluding painting and sculpture - with pottery. A ceramics professor, Ren wished to deepen her own exploration of clay in order to teach other emerging NY artists.

Name/Media: Margot Pollans, professor of environmental law at Pace University / NYC

Residency: Summer 2018 scholar-in-residence

Inward/Community Engagement: Margot worked on two writing projects; one that examined food security and food sovereignty frameworks and how they have informed US law, and the other which traced the development of ideas about agriculture within the environmental movement. While in-residence, Margot presented a public lecture on her findings, targeted specifically for local environmental organizations who have an interest in local agriculture and its place in the Adirondacks. Margot is now partnering with Craigardan to offer a law internship in the Adirondacks each summer.

Name/Media: Greer Rochford, chef/baker and photographer / Sydney, Australia

Residency: Summer 2018 culinary / photography

Inward/Community Engagement: Greer was interested in combining her passions of food, in particular baking, with photography in a book project that focused on documenting the recipe development process from

sourcing of ingredients to finished product. Greer taught a public “waste warrior” cooking course that examined how to use all parts of a seasonal, local fruit, the apple, with techniques that included preserving, pickling, carmelizing, and making chips.

Name/Media: Erica Berry, writer / Portland, Oregon

Residency: Winter 2019 creative writing fellow. Core focus was her first book manuscript

Inward/Community Engagement: Erica fell in love with farm chores, took pottery classes and led critiques. She taught the sold-out public workshop Writing the Ingredients in collaboration with chef Luke Ayres which used culinary themes as sensory inspiration for creative writing practices. Among Erica’s many published works is an article describing her time at Craigardan

Name/Media: Zachary Gerhardt Clemans, artist and chef / Old Forge, NY

Residency: Summer 2017 - Fall 2018 culinary residency

Inward/Community Engagement: Zach worked in the clay studio, collaborated with multiple artist projects and prepared experimental meals. Post residency, Zach moved nearby and continued to pursue a collaborative project of pop-up dinners with a local cheesemaker. He has since fed hundreds of people his homegrown newAdirondack style campfire cuisine.

Name/Media: Liz Flintz, arts curator and chef / Baltimore, MD

Residency: Summer 2017 culinary / place-based

Inward/Community Engagement: Liz researched the role food plays on human hormones and development in collaboration with fellow guest residents. She presented a free public lecture called Cooking Food / Creating Sex which detailed her findings and next steps. The resulting project and traveling exhibition has since been hosted in numerous states.

Name/Media: Jennifer Kidwell and Thomas Graves, performing artists / Philadelphia, PA and Austin, TX

Residency: Visiting Artist Fellows, summer 2018

Inward/Community Engagement: Jen and Thom worked on the development of Table, a new performance piece that focuses on the themes of The Commons and our responsibility to one another. This piece required collaboration with potters and chefs and became a dinner made and shared with audience participants. It was first performed free to the public at Craigardan before further development at Bard College and with the Rude Mechs in Austin.

Giving

At Craigardan, your gift is a transformative gift.

Craigardan brings people together to foster creativity, community-building, and social good. Our programs cultivate creative exchange and strengthen connections between people, place, and making. In addition to supporting the arts on an international scale, your gift to Craigardan will physically build spaces that enhance the social, cultural, and economic lives of local residents for decades to come.

We welcome gifts of any amount. For larger donations, there are numerous ways to recognize your generosity:

NAMING OPPORTUNITIES

• Full Campus naming rights, all 320 acres / $5,000,000

• Home Building houses program participants from around the world / $600,000

• Studio Building houses studio spaces and classrooms for multiple disciplines / $500,000

• Main Building houses community space, offices, event and gallery space, and a commercial teaching kitchen / $800,000

• Apple Barn is the year-round gathering and performing space / $200,000

• Gallery located inside the Main Building, it will display a rotation of works by local, national and international artists / $100,000

• Teaching Kitchen located inside the Main Building, it will be the hub of culinary activity and public classes / $100,000

• Event Space located inside the Main Building, it will host public events and lecture programs / $100,000

• Clay Studio entire dedicated facility for the ceramic arts, with a community studio / $100,000

• Meeting Room meeting space with tech equipment available for use by the local community / $25,000

• Studios individual studio spaces dedicated to visual arts, creative writing, and scholarly research / $10,000 each

• Individual Rooms + Cabins 15 rooms in Home, 4 offices in Main, and 6 individual cabins / $10,000 each

• Fellowships create a named fellowship for a residency of your choosing / $10,000

“A manuscript of poems takes maybe four or five key turns in its development, each of which I must wait for before moving on; the last key turn in the book I’m finishing now happened at Craigardan; I am increasingly unsure it could have happened anywhere else.”

Christian Barter

“I really did feel like I was an integral part of a beautiful place. The critique session of my manuscript was a vital component of helping me understand what I wanted to say. The kindness and constructive feedback from the group was amazing. The positive energy and the community there were true gifts.”

Theresa Senato Edwards

“I came back different than when I left and felt so much gratitude for Craigardan and its people. When I arrived what I hoped to do was in the realm of the theoretical, now it is real.”

Andrea Volpe

CONTACT

CRAIGARDAN

www.craigardan.org

info@craigardan.org

518.242.6535

9216 NYS Route 9N, Elizabethtown, NY 12932

“To find my voice as an artist, and to leave with a direction and a good idea of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be, that was a big accomplishment.”

Kyle Brumsted

All photography is by Jeff Mertz