Denise Labadie, a fiber artist living outside of Boulder, Colorado, creates contemporary art quilts. Her works are typically interpreted visions of ancient landscapes and pre-historic megalithic stones – dolmens, stone circles, and standing stones – or more recent monastic ruins including ancient stone churches, portals and passageways, forgotten cemeteries, burial crosses, and the like.
Denise discovered contemporary art quilting in the early 1990’s, and now focuses on her art full-time. Additional emphases include both advanced fabric painting and furthering her increasingly detailed understanding and use of shadowing and perspective.
Denise’s work has been juried or invited into numerous national and international shows including the 2010 Int’l TECHstyle Art Biennial (Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose, CA), Speaking with my Ancestors Art Show, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL (2008), Quilt National (2007), The International Quilt Society (2006), The American Quilt Society (2006), Sacred Threads (2001, 2003, 2005, 2007), Artist as Quiltmaker (2002), and Art Quilts at the Whistler (2002).
She is now an internationally recognized fiber artist. Her quilt, “Dun Aengus Stone Fort”, an ancient Irish 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). She is represented by the Shaw Cramer Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard.
Denise regularly visits “her” stones as often as possible – whether in Ireland, or the Southwest U.S., or Scotland, or most recently in Spain. Her passion for stones has only grown with every trip, as has the breadth of her travels; Portugal and France (and more of Spain!) are next on her itinerary.
Denise does not, however, confine her work to her own sacred sites. She has received multiple commissions to portray other people’s most meaningful, most spiritual sites, and is delighted to continue to do so in the future.
