LOUISE GARDINER: EMBROIDERED CAPES

A maker of mesmerising embroideries, of large flamboyant work, layering appliqué, and paint with intense stitching and hand-sewn beads, Louise Gardiner, was an innovator of contemporary embroidery, abound with colour, complexity and shimmer. It is with sadness we have learnt of her death on 07 Sept 2023, aged 51. 

To honour her contribution and legacy as a textile maker and designer we look back at issue 109: Rise Up at the article, Pay It Forward: Textile Artists Support One Another.

Text by Liz Hoggard

Gardiner set up her embroidery studio in 2004. Since graduating with a BA in Fine Art Textiles from Goldsmiths and then an Illustration MA from Manchester Metropolitan University, Louise Gardiner has maintained a full-time studio practice, employing and training work experience students. ‘I think I’m on to assistant number 15’, she says with a laugh. ‘I mentor these lovely young women, they learn everything and then they leave. But I would never want to clip their wings and say they can’t go’.  Drawing with a free-motion sewing machine needle, she translates her drawings onto linen and canvas. It’s only when you get close up, you see their extraordinary detail, with individual motifs built up with dazzling layers of pattern and texture.


Image: Louise Gardiner with a piece of her work. Image above: Coral by Louise Gardiner.

She has made commemorative pieces for Liberty windows on Regent Street, exhibited a five panel installation at The Saatchi Gallery, created a #womankind campaign and an embroidered ‘Cape of Empowerment’ for Pukka Tea. She is immensely proud of earning a living through her art (alongside the one-off pieces she makes luxury scarves and cushions). ‘My mentees see that you can survive and make a decent living. I live my own life which is so rare these days’, she says. It allows her students to dream big. She compares it to a relay race where you pass the baton to someone else, and then they run with it. But she is also clear-sighted about the challenges. ‘When I started to employ assistants, I was probably less relaxed about copyright but I learned that it takes time to build up a trusting relationship’, she says. ‘And anyway I think imitation is the best form of flattery. You’re really sharing your experience and your knowledge, and because you’re older and wiser, you’re much more aware of how that will benefit other people’.


Image: Pukka commission, Louise Gardiner.

Early on when her assistants left, Gardiner says she sometimes felt a bit hurt. ‘It’s daft, really, but I was selfishly wanting recognition for what I felt I’d put into their careers’, she says. ‘They’d be profiled in some fancy magazine, and not mention that they were with you for two years. It was quite a harsh lesson to learn as a mentor figure. I’m much wiser these days but back then I was naive. Some didn’t say thank you for quite a few years, until later when they recognised what a lovely relationship we’d had. I think young people do really appreciate what you put in, but they’re so desperate for success, they don’t vocalise it. And I was probably the same.’ Many of her mentees have kept in touch, including Lydia Higginson who went to set up Made My Wardrobe, documenting her decision to make her entire wardrobe from scratch. Gardiner says: ‘I’m really proud of them all. It’s great to know that you’ve influenced their career and shared your knowledge. And instead of feeling jealous that they’re doing better than you, you are thrilled for them’, she adds with a laugh.


Image: Rise Commission, Louise Gardiner.

She’s learned that real success comes from knowing that you’ve made a difference to people. ‘I feel so grateful for having had this rich and colourful and joyous career, with so many human connections. If you share your life’s work, it has so much more gravitas and meaning.’ But there’s a serious side, too. Gardiner was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2019, and has kept making and selling work throughout her chemo treatment and immunotherapy, aided by her former assistants. ‘They can give back to me now. Lydia will do me a favour and do a bit of pattern cutting or make me a toile or just come round for tea’, she says. ‘It’s just lovely. And without sounding too woo-woo, you realise it really is a cycle of life’.

Text by Liz Hoggard takes from  Pay It Forward: Textile Artists Support One Another  issue 109: Rise Up.