About the School
The Lotus School of Traditional Arts and Crafts is a small private school focusing on handicrafts, arts, and music of the traditional worlds.
Our mission is to support, preserve and pass on traditional crafts from East and West, while offering students the joy and insight that can be derived from learning to make beautiful objects by hand. The school will give students the opportunity to study with masters of various arts and crafts who will impart skills and wisdom from cultures that are on the verge of disappearing.
By the furthering the practice of traditional arts, we hope to transmit handicraft techniques as well as an intuitive understanding of beauty and form as passed on by generations of traditional craftspeople. For serious students, encountering these cultural currents can enrich their imagination and expand their horizons.
We believe the practice of arts and crafts serve as an antidote to the technology-focused lifestyles many people live today. Especially for children and teens, the practice of handicrafts can teach them calm, patience and focus and the experience of being wholly absorbed in their work. Through practice and perseverance, they will discover they can make something of beauty and value, using threads, pigments, papers and inks — and their own two hands.
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About the Owner
Heidi M. Fitzgerald was born in Stuttgart, Germany. At the age of 17, she studied fashion design at a small fashion school in Southern Germany. After graduation in 2003, she began working as a costume and stage design assistant in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In 2005, she moved to Paris where she continued working for theaters such as La Comedie Francaise, Theatre de la Ville, and Theatre de la Colline. In between productions, she apprenticed at various ateliers for Haute-Couture fashions and historical cinema. In Bloomington she has worked on shows for the IU-Opera and for Cardinal Stage Company. Currently she resides in Bloomington with her husband and two daughters. Having children in the 21st century and the changes in the cultures, have made Heidi keenly aware of the joy and also need for creating a space for the younger generation to be able to be exposed and learn about various traditional arts and crafts that she has encountered throughout her life and has learned to cherish and appreciate!
Selected Classes
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