Previous Artist-in-Residence

2024: Julie Benac-Laurin

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.

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!

2025 Artist-in-Residence

Our 2025 Artist-in-Residence is Olivia Treen.

Olivia has a passion for fiber arts, is driven to preserve the past through restoring antique wheels, and strives to reduce waste in her fiber arts by incorporating a "reuse" psychology.

Olivia will be giving a lecture both Friday and Saturday at the festival, and a display of her art will be available for viewing throughout the weekend in our Lecture Hall at the festival.

Olivia Treen Bio:

Hello, I’m Olivia Treen the face behind Treen Acres Farm. I am so excited and honored to be this year’s resident artist at Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. I have been involved with the fiber arts since I was 13 years old and my love of the craft has turned into a small hobby farm.

My dream is to create connections to the past through the fiber arts by incorporating antique and vintage equipment into each piece I create. I rescue and restore antique spinning wheel and rely solely on using antique and vintage equipment in my work. I am involved with living history where I can share that love with others.

Other than spinning, I enjoy needle felting where I reuse damaged doilies and give them a second life by incorporating them into my felted artwork.

On my little hobby farm, I raise English angora rabbits and enjoy using their wool in both my yarns and felted work. I’m looking forward to sharing more about these topics with you at this year’s Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival.