Irene Roderick: On starting again

“Once I started throwing fabric on the wall and could respond to what I was seeing in front of me, it just hit home," says Irene Roderick

🔊

Listen or watch on your favourite platform:

Austin, Texas-based textile artist Irene Roderick creates bold, improvisational quilts, building each piece outward from a single scrap of fabric pinned to her design wall. After decades as a painter, she discovered quilting at 66 and never looked back, developing her signature Dancing With the Wall method. In this conversation, Irene reflects on identity, resilience after a health crisis that took her creativity away, and her recent return to painting.

Show Notes

Key takeaways from this episode:

Discovery can strike at any age. Irene didn't pick up quilting until she retired at 66, drawn in while googling “weird quilts” for a bedspread for her tiny house. It's a reminder that a whole new creative chapter can open later in life, if you stay curious.
Building outward beats planning ahead. Irene starts every quilt with one piece of fabric in the centre of her design wall and builds out from there, with no sketch and no plan. Working improvisationally can take you somewhere you'd never have designed on purpose.
Functional art isn't lesser art. Irene makes every quilt from washable, 100% cotton so it can be used and lived with, not just displayed. Letting your work serve a purpose beyond the gallery wall can deepen its meaning rather than dilute it.
Creativity can go quiet, and come back. After a serious health crisis left Irene unable to create for months, she had to rebuild her relationship with her own creative identity from scratch. Her honesty is a reminder that a block born from real hardship deserves patience, not guilt.
Returning to an old medium can feel like meeting yourself again. After ten years away from painting, Irene picked up a brush for a self portrait, and later a series reflecting on the hardest years of her life. Revisiting a medium you'd set aside can be its own form of healing.

During the live interview, we shared some images of Irene’s artwork. Since you’re listening to the podcast version, we’ve made these images available for you below.

Join the conversation

What inspired you this episode? Share your biggest insight or favourite moment on social media, and tag @TakeTwoArtCourses.

Explore the images from this episode: