East Durham

It's, uh, just such a cool venue.

I mean, it's out way in the Catskill Mountains, I mean, this tiny, tiny little town, East Durham.

And it's just, it's such a fun outdoor event.

It's not, usually it's not really hot.

I could have sworn we were looking at this.

East Durham, New York.

Give me some directions.

Come

I thought Niagara was farther north than that.

But you're right.

And looking at the map, it's a five-hour drive from Niagara to East Durham.

It is mostly east-west.

Tonight, we are excited to welcome Austin Handel to the Creative America's podcast.

Austin is a blacksmith, a businessman, and one of the driving forces behind the Catskill Mountain Maker Camp held at his family's Blackthorn Resort in East Durham, New York.

Alongside Jimmy DiResta, Austin has helped turn MakerCamp into a destination where makers from all disciplines come together to create, teach, learn, and most importantly, build community.

Tonight, we're going to go beyond MakerCamp and learn more about the man behind it all, his family, his journey as a maker, and how this incredible community came together.

So three years before I was born, um, it was, we, we had, we had always, uh, been in, in business of some sort.

My, my dad and my, my grandfather, they, they had a horseback riding ranch along with my uncle and my grandmother.

And then, um, You know, they built that up, and my dad, he started the go-kart track right in East Durham in our town that Jimmy Dresta owns now.

So we ran both of those in 93.