Previous Artist-in-Residence

2024:  Julie Benac-Laurin

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Julie Benac has been in the world of fiber arts since 2006, and has been in the cut & sew industry for over 30 years. She holds a degree in Fashion Design from Ray College of Design in Chicago (now a part of the Art Institute), and is a familiar face in sewing classrooms, as well as inner-city Detroit where she taught homeless mothers how to sew on industrial equipment.

 

Now she is bringing fiber arts skills into the light, teaching sewing techniques for fiber artists, carding and fiber prep, hand-dyeing techniques, as well as artisan yarn spinning at various fiber festivals around the midwest.  She owns Fresh Lotus Design, a fiber art design small business with her partner Patrick, right on the shores of Lake Erie in Michigan. Here they produce hand-woven & hand-dyed artisan garments, luxury fiber blends for spinners, weavers and felters, as well as an outstanding and hard-to-find selection of hand-dyed silk yarns.

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Julie enjoys trying different ways to marry fiber arts with sewing to discover new directions in clothing accent and design. She lives on Lake Erie in southeast Michigan with her husband Patrick and three children...and a lot of weaving looms!