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This Blog is a personal record and an honest illustration of my life as a full time embroidery artist. I hope that you find it entertaining and inspiring.

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shown here are the Copyright of Louise Gardiner 2012.

Friday 29 October 2010

No 3


Whats totally lovely about visiting Syders is that I have some good friends there that I don't see very often ...  every 8 years more or less but nothing changes and its always nice to hang out with them again.  
One of these old friends is Mr O.  

Mr O invited me into his home some 14 years ago, with the vague connection that I exhibited in his brother's workshop in the UK, around the time I started out in the world of selling art to live.  
Young, firm, naive and full of hope.  Bless.


Like the Kiwis, the Ozzie's know what it's like to travel so they are very generous hosts.  


He's a good looking, fast talking, late forty something Aussie in a checked shirt and like me, he likes a good yarn and a a drinky poos.

He loves his balls and there are hundreds around the house.  
He also loves a few glasses of vino here and there and like most inhabitants of Sydney, he loves his food. 
When I arrived we had roast lamb, rosemary and garlic on our knees in this lovely room amongst the designer paraphernalia and graphic memorabilia.



The house feels like home as I spend nearly two months there as a young back packer... a big dollop of luxury in those days when I bunked it all the way round... and a big friendly pat on the back this time having slept in many many strange beds over the last few months on my Stitchery witchery tour extraordinaire. Great to be back down memory lane ... in the same bed, in the same room, with the same but more, nick nacky noo nars everywhere.

Have things changed that much since I was last here?
Theres a few more balls. 



Mr Os fine ball collection.


Boys love their toys eh?


I stared at this a lot with a glass of chilled white wine in my hand and a healthy serving of Mr Os yarns about the women in his life that come and go.  

Mr O said that last time I was at No 3, my embroidery consisted of Lowry-esque figures in queues and my work was most definitely Northern England, flat caps and pipes.  
Blimey that seems a long time ago now....The first ever exhibition I went to on my own was L.S.Lowry at Salford Museum.



SO...Thanks and Bon Voyage again Ridge Street - hopefully it wont be the last time.... 
I would love to come back to exhibit in Syders.

I have a girlfriend who has a girlfriend, they both work at Sydney OPERA  House and she is interested in helping me to exhibit here somewhere in the next few years.... Sydney and Melbourne would love my work apparently...... You only have to look at the statues which were commissioned of well known textile artists here to brighten up the city. 

Wonderbar!
Now that would be a damn good reason to fly across the other side of the globe again.  



Lou Lozzie the wannabe Aussie. 

2 comments:

  1. Lovely photos, Lou. Gorgeous textures.

    Yesterday was yesterday and fortunately always is! I know you couldn't give up really we just dance about with the idea occasionally.

    Fran :)

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  2. No Fran!!!! (AND Hi Fran!)
    I am serious!
    I will always be creating and I will always produce work but I am not sure I can keep up the free machine embroidery.
    Too much sacrifice and missing out on too much I want to do.
    Traveling has really highlighted what I knew already.

    Don't worry though as it will transpire / transform / mutate/ develop into something else. I don't think its what I am meant to be doing ..... I think I am destined for something else. Really. Its TOO limiting. Too frigid, too up its own precious little arse. Too BORING.
    (sorry - getting carried away)

    ITS JUST AN F-ING medium - a three dimensional thing and one would think we were drawing with used 18th century tampax or something as shocking, as trite and as pathetic as that!!!!!! (Sorry again.)

    ANYWAY ... Theres more to life. I always always have a little light on even when I am totally exasperated with this frustrating medium and its ridiculous web of limitations and small mindedness within itself and looked upon from the outside.

    IT makes me so angry to continue to slip off the side, for example to not be included in Alice Kettle and Jane Mckeating's new book on contemporary free machine embroidery just published in the UK- now why is that I ask you? (You being You generally ...not you Fran ;) )
    I mean for Fs sake - not one piece of my embroidered work in the whole damn book ...not even a mention.... Am I that invisible, unimportant, scary, inconsequential?

    I need people to see all sides of this so that they know that its not all plain sailing - far from it and actually a mugs game ... not a glamorous job at all.

    It takes guts and courage and balls to do this which is exactly WHY people like the crafts council should recognise that there are limitations to what a human being can create with such a labour intensive medium and for how long they can do it and at the right point offer someone a chance to shine, to celebrate where they have got to on their own - mid career makers.

    I have no idea who or what they accepted and will be showing ( and I respect that they will no doubt be shit hot- I will be brave and go and see it with a bottle of gin on one hand and a bucket in the other) but I sure as hell know that if they had given me a chance for once I would have stopped people in their tracks and been one of the most talked about features of the show. EVEN though I say it myself.

    Maybe they really really really know what they are doing ..... it just happens that I feel that I have never had their support... maybe I am looking in the wrong place. Maybe I am falling down the cracks.

    Hey.... I will just have to do a stonkingly jazzy wazzy solo show at the QBM ... might be the last for a while......

    ....so make sure you come see it.

    Thanks for reading Fran,
    Dont worry I am made of tough stuff and a head full of reason..... Sorry for swearing and big smiles and gin and tonics to you.

    Lou :)

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