blue water woman--fall 2016--final--09-27-2016--hi rez
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laura lyon<br />
Fiber Artist/Owner<br />
“Beatrice” of Lexington<br />
saving the earth<br />
by Patti Samar<br />
Fiber artist Laura Lyon is helping save the earth by rescuing one piece of<br />
junk at a time.<br />
And she is doing it in a bright and suns<strong>hi</strong>ny place also known as<br />
“Beatrice,” her retail shop located in the heart of downtown Lexington.<br />
Beatrice is full of items handmade by artists who use recycled materials<br />
in their artwork. Lyon, who creates her own line of custom- made sweater<br />
coats from recycled sweaters and fabrics, ex<strong>hi</strong>bits and sells her work in her<br />
shop as well.<br />
“Not<strong>hi</strong>ng in my shop says ‘Made in Mexico’ or ‘Made in C<strong>hi</strong>na’,” she said.<br />
“There is a mixture of one-of-a-kind art.”<br />
Beatrice opened in March of t<strong>hi</strong>s year and it came to be after a leap of<br />
faith for Lyon.<br />
“I’d never worked in retail so there was some fear in the belly,” she said<br />
with a chuckle. “But we’ve done very well here.”<br />
A resident of St. Clair County, she chose to locate her shop in Lexington<br />
because she felt it would be supported there. “You don’t really find another<br />
store like ours in Lexington,” she said. “T<strong>hi</strong>s community supports the arts<br />
and we’re excited to be here.”<br />
Lyon earned a bachelor’s degree in grap<strong>hi</strong>c design in 1991, but ended up<br />
working in the sales industry for many years. Her first job out of college was<br />
as a sales representative for the Port Huron Times Herald and that led to a<br />
long career in newspaper advertising sales.<br />
“I have an art degree and even though I worked for corporate America, I<br />
always stayed in the arts by attending fiber workshops,” she said.<br />
When she left the paper in 2005, she had earned the title of advertising<br />
sales manager. She said early on in her career she felt she was using her<br />
grap<strong>hi</strong>c design skills at the newspaper by helping clients with their ad design,<br />
but eventually she saw the industry changing and felt it was time to pursue<br />
other interests.<br />
She dabbled in other working environments for a number of years before<br />
10 FALL <strong>2016</strong> BlueWaterWoman.com<br />
deciding it was time to go back to her artistic roots and begin creating and<br />
working for herself.<br />
Her idea for creating sweater coats came after she received sweaters from<br />
a family member who had passed away. She wanted to create somet<strong>hi</strong>ng to<br />
help keep alive the memory of her loved one in a new and useful way.<br />
Though she makes good use of her art degree when selecting various<br />
fabrics and colors to coordinate in one of her sweater coats, Lyon didn’t grow<br />
up knowing how to sew and to t<strong>hi</strong>s day, she creates the coats free-style.<br />
“I don’t sew with patterns,” she said. “I just see and cut and sew. I love the<br />
fiber arts and the design was just a continual process of experimenting.”<br />
After creating her first few coats, friends and family encouraged her to sell<br />
them on the art show circuit and she found herself frequently down in the<br />
Detroit area.<br />
“People thought they were cool and I ended up in Detroit at art shows,”<br />
she said, noting that the more she sold, the more she knew she was onto<br />
somet<strong>hi</strong>ng.<br />
“Another reason for opening my own shop in Lexington was I got tired<br />
of being on the road to the art shows,” she said. Being in one place – she<br />
has a workshop in the back of her shop where she now creates her artwork<br />
– allows her to sell her items in a stable environment.<br />
Lyon feels good when she is able to give back to the community and she<br />
has been able to get involved in a number of arts-oriented volunteer projects<br />
in both St. Clair and Sanilac counties.<br />
Additionally, she has been able to offer other artists who create upcycled<br />
art the opportunity to sell their items in her shop, as well. And, she said,<br />
customers are digging the whole concept.<br />
“It makes them feel like they are being good to our earth,” she said.<br />
“Instead of junking up our landfills, we are saving the earth one piece of<br />
junk at a time.”