“John Prine” • 55" x 63"“Marks in Black and Red” • 52" x 62"to stitch lines ¼ " apart in each pieced section.
The stitching is done improvisationally without
preplanning and often changes direction depending
on the pieced shape she is working on.
Asked about her studio, Irene exclaimed, “My
house is my studio!” She lives in a 250-square-foot
tiny house in Austin, Texas, with an 8' x 8' design
wall in the living area. She works from 8 a.m. to 6
p.m. every day except Thursday. “if you’re going
to be an artist, you have to consider it a job,” she
explained.
Irene works on one piece at a time, designing
on the wall, engineering the construction, and
stitching the texture. The construction of her work
is often a challenge in itself to make sure that the
lines and shapes end up where she wants them in
the design. While she likes to finish a piece once
begun, she doesn’t like the design wall to be empty.
So if there’s a new idea percolating in her head,
once the current piece is ready for the quilting, she
may allow herself to start something new on the
wall.
Exhibiting her work is very important. “There’s
no point in doing it unless you’re going to exhibit
it and get a response.” And she’s had quite a bit of
success. “Line Drawing Landscape” won first place
in the Improv category at QuiltCon 2020, she won
the emerging artist award at Quilt National in 2019,
and she had two second place finishes at QuiltCon
- Her work will be exhibited again at Quilt
National in 2021.
Irene uses mostly solids and hand-dyed fabric in
her work, sometimes only a few colors. “She’s
Lost Control Again” demonstrates her style in
shades of red and neutral, with just a touch of
complementary green in two places for contrast.
She doesn’t think of her work in series, but she
works on an idea until “it feels tired or I get bored.”
In 2020, she experimented with adding patterned
fabrics to her designs. Her quilt “Covid Chaos”
has a variety of plaids and large-scale prints added
to the mix, along with a nod to tradition with
checkerboards and half-square triangles.