“Clinging to the Edge” • 56" x 72"“Clinging to the Edge” showcases
Irene’s improvisational style
with a base of cool blue lines
and curved shapes sparked by
judicious use of warm yellow and
orange.
She thinks of her work as
paintings in fabric, but “I never
found this creativity in painting
ever,” Irene said. The limitations
imposed by creating with fabric
and thread instead of paint are
exciting. “I want to push it to see
if I can do this and make it work,”
she added.
“John Prine” is a good example
of Irene’s intuitive style, with
strong colors in the center fading
out to more neutral at the edges.
Working from the center out,
she adds elements one at a time,
listening to her inner voice as she
goes. Her goal is a design that
sings, in a way that is balanced,
interesting, and joyful. “John
Prine” won a Juror’s Choice award
at Quilts=Art=Quilts in 2020.
Irene has been a maker for most
of her life, exploring many crafts,
including beading and stained
glass, in addition to painting.
“Growing up, if I wanted it, I
had to make it. That made me
fearless about making things,”
she said. She went back to school
at age 46 and received a BFA
from the University of Texas, and
then earned an MFA from the
California Institute of the Arts in
2001.
There weren’t any quilters in
her family, and Irene stumbled
onto quilting as she was looking
for a new creative path after
retirement. The work of Nancy
Crow, Gwen Marston, and Denyse
Schmidt spoke to her and she
took a basic quilt making course
to learn the fundamentals. But she
didn’t spend a lot of time making
traditional style quilts, preferring
to dive into improvisation almost
right away.
“I don’t have any preconceptions
when I start a quilt, so I never
know what I’m doing until it
happens,” she explained. To findinspiration for her work, she
looks at a lot of art, especially
modern art. “I come up with
an idea and see if I can do it—
more as a challenge than an
inspiration,” Irene said. Her
painterly design sense is evident
in her use of skinny black lines
creating shapes reminiscent of the
work of Joan Miró and Paul Klee.
“I’m so drawn to the tactility of
quilts—the depth and the way
they look,” Irene said. She does
all of her own quilting, preferring