Denise Labadie is a fiber artist living outside of Boulder, Colorado.
Denise has a profound love of ancient Irish landscapes. Her quilts are most typically either interpreted images of pre-historic megalithic stones or passageways, or more recent monastic ruins – dolmens, cairns, burial chambers, stone circles, standing stones, ancient stone churches and monasteries, forgotten cemeteries, burial crosses, and the like.
Denise’s quilts have been juried or invited into numerous national and international shows including Quilt National (2007), The International Quilt Society (2006), The American Quilt Society (2006), Sacred Threads (2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009), Artist as Quiltmaker (2002), and Art Quilts at the Whistler (2002).
Descended from the O’Dougherty clan from Co.’s Donegal and Mayo, Denise typically visits Ireland at least every other year, and her passion for her ancestral land has only grown with every trip. In the Spring of 2008 she spent a full month lecturing and teaching throughout Ireland.
Previously a professional seamstress (a background central to the overall very high quality craftsmanship of her work), Denise discovered contemporary art quilting in the early 1990’s, and has focused on her art full-time ever since. Additional emphases have included advanced fabric painting, and furthering her understanding (and use) of shadowing and perspective. She is now an internationally recognized fiber artist.
Her interests in things Irish continues to broaden, resulting in her recent focus on stone passageways and portals, and ancient churches, rather than solely on pre-historic stones and landscapes. Her quilt, “Dun Aengus Stone Fort”, an ancient portal, received two of the top awards – including “People’s Choice” and the McCarthy Award (for craftsmanship) – at Quilt National 2007 (the premier contemporary art quilt show in the world).
Denise does not confine her work to just Ireland. She has received multiple commissions relative to other people’s sacred sites, and is happy to continue to do so in the future.
