our roots

I’m Dana McDowell, owner and designer of CLEMENTINE.

Our story begins—as most artist stories do—with the need to create surmounting most everything else. Drawing defined my childhood. I was never without a pencil and stack of paper. I have dabbled in painting, creative writing, theatre, and even attended architecture and design school.

As newlyweds, my husband and I moved to South-central Alaska for three years. Soon after, I was introduced to my flower friend and mentor, Dallas Wildeve of Bloomsbury Blooms. She has this incredible talent of reimagining flowers, something I had never witnessed before then! Through interning with Bloomsbury Blooms, I experienced dinnerplate dahlias, freckled foxglove and sweet peas for the very first time. I borrowed garden and floral design books from Dallas to read when I wasn’t in the shop.

Upon returning home from our time in Alaska, I quickly realized how much I missed my time with Dallas and decided that I could craft a similar kind of flower magic in Cape Girardeau. In the spring of 2016, CLEMENTINE was born.