Louise Gardiner

Evenin'all.

No,  I am not dead :-)

Do not worry my darlink Bloggerobbafollowers...
I have just been unable to communicate about my working life for some time.  

I think it has something to do with the amount of people I communicated with at the COLLECT exhibition, the back breaking run up to the show and the amount of solitary hours I spent making those 5 canvasses.  IT WAS TOUGH AS NAILS.

This wee blog was quite literally the only communication I had with the outside world for some weeks.
I was that bloomin involved ... :[  I think I can honestly say I completely burnt myself out.  

Nearing the end.

I have never ever done a project that required such total dedication, concentration and 'man hours'.  

I look back and I am not sure how I did it.  Without wanting to sound like a wailing woosey ... I am just amazed that I was able to switch off my emotional self and plough my whole personality into those pieces.  I almost feel as though it had nothing to do with me now, it was some kind of prolonged outer body experience ... If I think about the 5 diferent pieces and the drawings and the stitches and the bits of fabric and the tiny paint brush ... well, I feel a bit sick!

It was quite destructive to switch off everything important to me really, a healthy active life style and just become an obsessive creative junkie.  I can honestly say that if it weren't for music and wine I would never have been able to do that project.  Terrible but true.

I definitely had a physical and emotional collapse at the end, mainly brought on by fatigue and just about strung together by madness.  I found myself charging around parties in hot pants and over done rouge. Throwing myself in the sea and challenging friends to a drink off.  Not surprising really as during the project I stopped socialising and was the most boring person to be with in the world.
I was so ambitious and all I could talk about was the design or the process ... I stopped exercising and going to yoga, I stopped doing anything good for me.... I gave it my everything.

I became stiff and immobile but hell yeah my BRAIN WAS ON FIRE!

Crazy.  I became a tumbleweed.  I blew myself away. 

Sorting out the unbelievable amount of  drawings from the Collect Project.

I don't think I could do that again .... not in the same circumstances.  

I think it would make me ill and mad.  

So that's what I have been doing ... I have been in 'rehab' ..... on the computer and off getting a life again.  Writing a blog was the last thing on my mind ... I was thinking of giving it up actually.

I cant face spending anymore time on the computer than I already have to ... and since the show, my main focus has been administration/ workshops/ marketing/ press and accounting.  Everything that had fallen behind.  Which was everything.  

I have a plan.  

I am now working on two commissions and will post some pics soon.  I am back in the studio and have some new music.  I have had a sort out and a clear up and got the dehumidifier back on.  I have visited Kefalonia, Portugal and London.  I have 'thrown my arm' right off at the STONE ROSES gig in Lisbon till my shoulder ached, I have woo wooed and Yee-haahed on the dance floor at two festivals dressed as Dolly Parton, I have wiggled my hips in Manchester, lane on the grass in a warm and barefooted haze, sipped cider in Bristol and ignited some camp fires ... 

I have been to teach a bunch of lush ladies at Bedruthan Steps Hotel, Cornwall where I will be visiting again twice next year as it is so lovely in January and November if you fancy a lovely break at a stunning location.

I have got a bit of colour in my face, I feel 10 years younger,  I have been to yoga, I have swum in the Atlantic,  I have been to a mad celebrity lesbian ball in London (and no this does not mean I am playing for the ladies team - I am just like 'hip' yarl!!  Its cool to be gay these days.  I am still not cool enough but look at this for a laugh -Tatler Ladies Ball.)   

Hope you are all super cool and well.   

Here's to the Olympic fever which reminded me how important it is to put the hours in and put the hours in and never stop believing.  Oh Yeah! COME ON GB! 

Learning to Chill again.