Heidi Mariam Fitzgerald transformed her creativity and passion for fashion design into living art as the featured artist at this year’s Lotus World Music & Arts Festival.
Fitzgerald invited festivalgoers to roll up their sleeves for a hands-on experience in Indian woodblock printing and bandanas.
On Saturday, outside the Monroe County Public Library on Kirkwood Avenue, families and children lined up to press carved wooden blocks with vibrant ink on ornamented fabric. With Fitzgerald’s help, they created colorful mystic patterns and animal motifs onto their bandanas — a piece of the festival they could carry home.
“The possibilities of what it could become were very exciting,” Lotus attendee Michele O’Mara said. “I can’t wait to take this home as something I will remember about this day.”
For Fitzgerald, those ideas are closely tied to her belief that art should strike a balance between creativity and pragmatism.
“What I actually really like is this combination of art and craft, so that the art has a kind of framework, and it doesn't, it’s creative, but it doesn’t go beyond a certain level where it loses its meaning,” Fitzgerald said. “So, I like the combination of functionality and art, that there’s beauty, but there’s also practicality.”
Fitzgerald’s path to becoming the festival’s featured artist spans continents. She grew up in southern Germany, where art was appreciated on both sides of her family.
Her paternal grandmother painted fashion illustrations for books during World War II, and her maternal grandmother sewed clothing for her children. Fitzgerald followed in their footsteps with a love for both painting and making clothes, as well as many other types of art.
She first came to Bloomington as a teenager on a foreign exchange program. Later, she studied apparel merchandising and fashion design at Indiana University, even working at the IU opera costume shop.
Her education continued at Modefachschule Sigmaringen, a fashion school in southern Germany. She went on to work across German-speaking Europe before relocating to Paris, where she worked in costume shops and haute couture studios.
“It gave me a broadened imagination of what is there, what is possible,” Fitzgerald said. “And the beauty of costume places in Paris is that they’re actually often quite old-fashioned.”
Fitzgerald returned to Bloomington in 2006 to raise a family. With two children and a desire to create a space that reflected the cultural diversity she experienced abroad, she opened the Lotus Studio of Perennial Arts & Crafts.
The studio doubles as both her design space and a teaching hub, offering workshops for families that have ranged from sewing and fabric printing to Ukrainian Easter egg decorating and Native American bead looming.
“To be able to create a space where the younger children can come in and learn easily and be taught meaningful crafts fosters a sense of purpose,” Fitzgerald said.
That philosophy of hers carried into this year’s festival as Katarina Koch, the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation executive director, approached Fitzgerald at last year’s Bloomington Handmade Market. Inspired by her business and work at her studio, Koch knew that her contribution to the Lotus Festival would make a great addition.
“She brings a piece of her own heritage to the festival, while allowing kids and adults to participate in artwork that fosters a sense of community,” Koch said.
For Fitzgerald, this partnership felt like a natural extension of her mission to share cultural traditions through art.
“I was thrilled to collaborate with Lotus,” Fitzgerald said. “They focus on traditional music from around the world. I focus on traditional arts and crafts from around the world. It goes well together.”
Following the festival, Fitzgerald will turn her focus to expanding her fashion studio. She will host a two-day event from 3-6 p.m. Oct. 3 and 4 at the Lotus Studio of Perennial Arts & Crafts at 212 S. Rogers St. for visitors to try on clothes and place custom orders for her clothing.
For now, Fitzgerald said she hopes her work will continue to inspire, one seam at a time.
“Life is a lot more enjoyable when you’re surrounded by beauty,” she said. “It’s nice to dress nicely, it’s nice to look at people who are well dressed, and it makes life much more pleasant. That’s something I think art and fashion can really give to a community.”
