02/07/24 - VIRTUAL THREAD Talk - Irene Roderick - 8-9pm

Join Club Gotham for a presentation by Irene Roderick - Dancing with the Wall. This virtual talk will take place in the Gotham Quilts Community. Once you register, you will receive an email with instructions for logging in. All Talks are in Eastern (NYC) tme. Talk will not be recorded. 

In Dancing with the Wall: Quilting Irene’s Way, Irene will discuss her art and quilt practice. She shows and discusses 20-25 quilts made in the past several years, and talks about her influences, her history and her process. 

Meet Irene

My artwork is currently grounded in the textile arts, focused on quilt making and fabric dyeing.  I am trained as a painter and I have always been interested in pattern and color and how these elements can evoke emotional and political responses. A few years ago, I encountered modern quilting and loved the idea of making a “utilitarian painting.” I learned to quilt and accidentally discovered improvisational quilting, an intuitive, spontaneous process I call "dancing with the wall.” The technique opened up a new-found creativity for me. This work is entirely intuitive and visceral.  

I begin by placing a scrap of fabric in the center of my design wall and then grow the quilt one element at a time, responding to each “step” until it feels balanced, interesting and joyful. When I begin, I do not know  what is going to happen but create through trial and error, literally dancing between the wall, the cutting mat, the sewing machine and the iron. Through this act of making, I have learned to embrace the joy of creative intuition, spontaneous expression, and a blind trust in process.