What's Eye Opener?
Eye Opener began quietly in 2021, when six design alumnae shared an Airbnb during the With Eyes Opened exhibition at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Long nights around the table—talking about work, life, fear, and ambition—opened a rare honesty and humor. In that moment, I knew I wanted to create a design retreat for women+ at Cranbrook: a place where beauty, art, and nature invite reflection, creative practice, and wild possibilities.
The following summer, sixteen alumnae returned for the first Eye Opener retreat. By 2025, we were twenty-two grown-ass women—designers, artists, and educators—sleeping in dorms, wandering the woods, disappearing into the library and museum, sharing meals without having to cook or clean, participating in workshops led by peers, and sitting together in the strange blend of comfort and curiosity that comes with hearing an idea for the first time. Like camp or grad school, only different. Defenses drop.
A circle of trust forms.
Now we’re opening the circle wider.
Eye Opener is a five-day design retreat at Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit for women+ in design. Structured as a shared table—not a stage—it offers workshops, walks, and real exchange across generations and practices.
I look forward to gathering exceptional women in this extraordinary place.
Laurie Haycock Makela
Eye Opener Founder
design t(h)inker + educator
Cranbrook Alumna + former Designer-in-Residence
sits on a 320+ acre educational community designed as a total work of art by Eliel and Loja Saarinen, where women like Ray Eames, Florence Knoll, Toshiko Takaezu, Annabeth Rosen, Olga de Amaral, Sonya Clark, Dee Clements, Tiff Massey, Katherine McCoy, Gere Kavanaugh, Ruth Adler Schnee, Shannon Goff, Wook-Kyung Choi, Sheida Soleimani, Karyn Olivier, nicole killian, Lorraine Wild, Vivian Beer, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Nancy Skolos, Lucille Tenazas, Qualeasha Wood, Akea Brionne, Sherri Smith, Anne Wilson, and Joan Livingstone began their creative work. You can feel their presence everywhere—from the library and art museum to the paths, the studios, the air. To learn more about the Academy, click here.
