Detropia

In a 2012 interview with That Shelf, Heidi Ewing detailed how her personal connection to the Detroit-area gave her insight and inspiration: "...I'm originally from Farmington Hills. My grandmother was a lifelong Detroiter. My parents left for the suburbs during the riots, so I lived about five miles outside of the city. But really my closest connection to the material is that my father had a manufacturing business. So I had a front row seat to the difficulty of keeping a manufacturing business alive, especially during the 80s when I grew up. Japan was rising. Global competition was starting to bite Detroit in the butt. A lot of my father's colleagues went out of business and he was able to stay in business by continuing to reinvent himself and making new products. So really, I've always understood the importance of maintaining a manufacturing base because it put me through college, you know?"