Denise Labadie

Denise is an active and appreciated lecturer and teacher. Highlights include being an invited instructor teaching a week-long landscape design and contemporary art quilting workshop and retreat at Georgia O'Keefe's (America's foremost landscape artist) Ghost Ranch, and teaching both the 2017 Séminar Post Carrefour (a four-day masterclass workshop held in France at the end of each year's annual Carrefour Européen du Patchwork), and a similar four-day workshop at the 2018 International Quilt Festival of Luxembourg. She has taught in the USA, Ireland, Spain, China, South Korea, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Germany, and The Netherlands.

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Workshop and Lecture Schedule

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* * *   View French TV's excellent five minute video segment on Denise's 2017 Séminar Post Carrefour Masterclass   * * *

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“WOW!! I loved your workshop. First, I learned so many great and unexpected techniques for creating intriguing fabric texture. Second, you were so willing to share your knowledge and experience, and you didn't hold anything back. Third (and this is so important to me), I didn't feel pressure to complete a specific number of (pre-selected) pieces or to keep up with anyone else. Unlike some other workshops I have taken, I felt the freedom of just being able to relax, explore, learn, and create.” Sandy Jung, USA

“Joining Denise’s Carrefour masterclass was a great experience. I learned so much about texture, and about creating texture on fabric. I also learned about color choices, fabric choices, and design and construction choices. It was one of the most valuable classes I ever attended because it didn’t linger in theory but opened a door to a new set of tools in my daily textile art work.“ Nienke Smit, The Netherlands

“I recently attended the Seminar Post Carrefour masterclass with Denise Labadie, and I recommend her to everybody interested in painting fabric or creating distinctive textile surfaces for art quilts. Denise is an excellent teacher, and is generous and willing to share her knowledge. She took time for everybody, encouraging our creativity. Her enthusiasm was very communicative.” Chantal Guillermet, France

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Teaching in France (2017 Séminar Post Carrefour)

Denise’s lectures typically highlight her approach to her quilting, how she melds art and craftsmanship, and key lessons learned over the years – both technical and creative. Topics variably include: how she constructs her stone structures and landscapes; techniques selection and best practices; the nature and use of her own hand-painted fabric; her approach to quilt composition and design; her integrated management of color, texture, and dimensionality; her struggles relative to perspective and shadowing; the role of sound craftsmanship in catalyzing creative expression; the nature and importance of both her early (pre-art quilting) and continuing sewing technique and art-related training; and the importance and role of peer reviews and multi-discipline design critiques. She also lectures on brand development and marketing relative to gaining an international presence and audience.

Denise’s workshops focus on fabric painting, design and composition, and/or construction techniques and craftsmanship (her Quilt National quilt Dun Aengus Stone Fort won not only the People’s Choice Award for most popular quilt, but more importantly – from an instructional and benefit-to-the-student standpoint – the McCarthy Memorial Award for Craftsmanship). Her workshops are also not just about stones, or even landscapes, but instead about "best practices" relative to improving quilt dimensionality, texture and color, craftsmanship, and design integrity, regardless of quilt theme or focus. Lectures and workshops can, of course, be customized or structured as desired.

Workshops include:

Construction Techniques

One-day workshops focused on turned edge appliqué, raw edge appliqué, reverse appliqué, and insetting; or two-day workshops that additionally include free-form strip piecing, couching, “thread shadowing” (similar to thread painting), and quilt finishing.

Fabric Painting

Two-day workshops focused on helping students explore and discover new (and oftentimes very surprising) techniques for using multiple layers of sun-reactive transparent color paints to create their own uniquely textured and colored fabrics. The focus is on how best to use and layer paint, how to use various resists, and – depending on each participant's desired results – how to most successfully influence or cause (and control) layer-by-layer differential paint absorption, diffusion, blending, patterning, and/or mottling. Resulting fabrics can be remarkable.

Art Quilt Design Intensive

In-depth four or five-day masterclass workshops that include all of the above – Fabric Painting and Construction Techniques – plus Working from Photographs. This is the workshop that Denise taught at Georgia O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch (2012), at the Séminar Post Carrefour (2017), and at the 2018 International Quilt Festival of Luxembourg. She is scheduled to teach five-day versions of the workshop In 2019 at the Hudson River Valley Art Workshop (USA) and Mendocino Art Center (USA), and in 2020 at the annual Quilting by the Lake (USA) conference and the annual Grand Forks Quilt Connection fiber art retreat (Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada).

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Denise's experience and knowledge is deep and wide-ranging, and she has the requisite ability, knowledge, and practical experience to teach the comparative strengths, benefits, and use – basically, the "what, why, when, and how" – of both new and (oftentimes repurposed) traditional fiber art and quilting techniques. Her lectures are very "unstiff" (and fun), and her workshops are highly interactive, are very hands-on, and are focused more on the development of participant creativity, confidence, and experiential exploration and learning than on rigid, one-size-fits-all lesson plans or patterns – her objective is to teach useable techniques and "lessons learned" that each participant's own creativity can confidently expand on once away from the classroom. Denise is an instructor that enthusiastically, energetically, openly, and warmly shares both her knowledge and design sense, without reservation.

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Workshop and Lecture Schedule