Biggin' it right up!

Some recent Press -

http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2012/05/07/londontheinside%E2%80%99s-to


http://countrydays.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/getting-crafty-with-embroidery/


https://www.yeovalley.co.uk/2012/06/get-eccentric-this-weekend


http://needleprint.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/louise-gardiner-worshops-in-1784-quarry.html


http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/may/11/embroidery-masterclass-emma-kennedy

Emma's Eccentric Britain: embroidery masterclass 

Emma Kennedy's only taste of needlework ended in tears, but can embroiderer Lou Gardiner, whose work is on show this week at the Saatchi Gallery in London, bring out her creative side?

A Lou Gardiner work, and Emma with her portrait of the artist. Lou is on Emma's right

" It's 10am and Lou Gardiner is handing me a sherry. "It's a Nanna tradition," she tells me, "you know, for loosening you up." I'm at the Bedruthan Steps Hotel in Cornwall to join Lou for her Superstitchers masterclass. She's infectiously enthusiastic and has a smile that could demolish walls. She's wearing a pirate's hat and is bouncing around the room like a foal let out for the first time.

"I think," she declares, "that embroidery is a dynamic and exciting medium. And today is all about losing your inhibitions, losing your fear of creativity. We're constantly bombarded with images of perfection but today we're going to blow a raspberry at all that and express our individuality."

Everyone cheers and downs their sherries. This is going to be a great day. We're only five minutes in and I have absolutely no doubt that if Lou pointed to the cliff in the distance and told me to jump off it, I would.

Lou, pictured below, is a Cheshire girl, a farmer's daughter. She went to a convent, didn't like it much and escaped to London, where she studied art at Goldsmiths.

"I didn't do very well," she tells me, grinning. "I had no idea what conceptual was. So I just sat around eating chips and watching boys. I had nothing to say. Now I feel as if I have a lot to say."

She certainly does. She's widely regarded as one of the greatest machine embroidery artists in Britain and has an exhibition at this weekend's Collect fair, in the Saatchi Gallery in London.

"The only thing holding you back is lack of confidence," she says, fixing us with a rousing stare. "Draw with your gut! Strip everything back! Let's celebrate paper and pens!"

With that, she presses play on her iPod and Buffalo Soldier booms out. We've all been given a pen and a large piece of paper, which we have to fill with marks that flow out of us without thinking. It's incredibly liberating: we're all drawing like crazy and everyone's pictures burst with energy.

"Picasso," Lou tells us, as she sticks all our pictures up on the wall, "used to say that he spent 70 years trying to draw like a child. Art is mark making – it's a visible affirmation of your existence. Right. Everyone put on a hat. You're all going to draw each other."

There are about 10 of us in the group and even though Lou has already managed to push our confidence through the roof, the thought of drawing portraits is clearly instantly daunting. But this isn't portrait drawing as you'd expect; our portraits are going to be turned into embroidery. So we're given fresh pieces of paper and Lou tells us we have to "draw in one continuous line. You mustn't take your pen from the page. And NO LOOKING DOWN!"

No looking down? What? "When you don't look down," Lou continues, "you're not constantly judging what you're doing. Your portraits are going to be quirky, free expressions of creativity."

She's right. Everyone's portraits, when we're done five minutes later (yes, five minutes), have a wonderful eccentricity that would never have been achieved if we'd sat for hours doing them "properly". I've drawn Lou, in her pirate's hat, and there's a freedom to this style of working that I fall in love with.

"Now," Lou says, as she sits us all down at our sewing machines, "I want you to think of thread as ink. Thread is your drawing tool. So make a border for your picture. Do whatever you like."

I had one term of needlework lessons at school. I had to make a blouse. I spent six weeks stitching a collar together by hand and then gave the whole thing to my mum's friend Jeanette to finish as I stood crying because I never worked out how to thread a bobbin.

And now, here I am, happily stitching leaves and flower shapes on to canvas. Once we're happy with our borders, we all begin putting our portraits on tracing paper, which we then stick to our canvas with masking tape. And then the embroidery begins. I'm not perfect by any means and I make mistakes but by the end of the day I have a large portrait of Lou made entirely from stitches. The following day I paint it and Lou shows me how to embroider further with coloured threads, and add scraps of cloth to provide texture. It's relaxing, it's satisfying, but more than anything, it's fun.

As we stand looking at what I've made, I can't believe my eyes.

"You made that," says Lou, giving me a proud nudge.

And Lou made it happen. The woman is a genius.

Emma Kennedy was an absolute laugh and a pleasure to teach.  

What a fantastic article... THANKS EMMA KENNEDY!!!!!! X :)