Featured Artist

I first met Bill Hardy when he was working at Millbrook School; I approached him about life drawing classes, which were hard to find 18 years ago in this area. He generously helped us, a group of artists, and we had many delightful evening sessions quietly working alongside him. Hardy grew up in San Diego, where the colors were like Kodak wonderland with hard-edged shadows. After moving east, he became the beloved Head of the Millbrook School art department for nearly 30 years, building many long-term friendships and inspiring future artists and designers to find themselves differently. I caught up with Hardy in his new studio to natter about his current projects and journey.  

How do you find working full time on your art after so many years teaching?

We were trying to finish this studio and get my wife Cam’s studio finished. So, there was a period when I did no painting, but that’s okay. In the interim, I spent the time thinking, writing, reading, and photographing, which I enjoy, so I’m always embedded in some creative experience. But it’s lovely to get back into the physical act of painting. 

I’d been teaching for almost 50 years when COVID hit. I found myself teaching art on Zoom, which was hard. During lockdown I didn’t expect my students to have art materials with them, and I had several students who were in China, some in Cambodia, and some in Thailand. So, I taught during the day, and then I would teach at eleven o’clock at night. For me, it was no problem except that I was more concerned about how they were doing, how they were feeling, and how they were adjusting, so we had conversations about art in a broader sense. I did not need to see their latest painting, their output was unimportant; the connection was more vital. But that experience made me realize that I was not designed for online teaching; it felt like it was time to retire. I miss the classroom – that experience – more than anything. At the same time, I’m blessed to have had this time to work.

My most influential mentor was my high school art teacher, who, unlike my parents, encouraged me to attend art school. How did you journey here from the West Coast?

It wasn’t something that the earlier generation encouraged. Likewise, I struck off on my own; I studied at San Diego State College, which became San Diego State University, where I received my bachelor’s. My primary fields were studio art and social psychology. I just loved what I was doing. I was also the student department representative for the arts. 

After graduating, I found a job at Desert Sun, a private school in California, in the mountains of Idyllwild, with an excellent art department, where I was the head of the art department. Later, I was offered a job as department head for the arts at Breck School in Minneapolis, and my wife Cam came with me. We were there for five years and wanted to start a family, but we realized that the only way to start a family while working was to return to boarding school life, where we would have more help. So, we inquired at various schools in the West and then some out in the East. Within just a few days, we received a response from Millbrook School that the head of their art department was retiring. I was unfamiliar with the school, but I had worked with the Dean of Faculty in California; it’s such a small world! So, in 1990 we came east, and the school was ideal. Plus, Cam was from Guilford, CT, and she had family back here.  

What motivates your practice? Can you discuss these pieces on the walls and your process?

I’m in the practice of trying to understand what it means to be human and stay human; I believe the word for that is humility. Art facilitates that practice. It asks me nothing but to pay attention and surrender to the process. My art keeps me honest. It has no room for arrogance and is precious only in the doing. Those moments where it asks me to join in dialogue and dance are filled with truth. Each painting becomes my listening post. In this current polarized and truth-seeking environment, my art has become an avenue toward that solace. So, my favorite time to work in the studio is either in the late evening or early morning, just as the light moves, for the silence and calm that comes from a less frenetic time slot is soothing.  

Since I hadn’t painted in quite a while, I wanted to go back into storage, pull out paintings I had done before, and bring my new self back to the old self. To do that, I had to eradicate any semblance of the old painting. I’ve journeyed with these paintings, so that was the experience, which is why I’m going to the next phase.  

So, you painted over these old paintings. They have a memory to them, and they feel vibrant. How did that feel?

That was part of the issue: getting over the kind of preciousness of something you’ve done before, and maybe you were attached to it and thought you needed to move on, so this was my way of forcing myself to move on. I felt blind in a way, and part of me was scared. Creating a line in oil pastel marks the beginning. The lines are physical and spontaneous, representing space, especially since these two pieces are square. That’s a more complex format to work on because it’s not working in any specific direction; it’s all over the place. Whilst keeping it completely central, I like that challenge, and these shapes emerged in both paintings. 

Do you gravitate more to painting or drawing?

I have gone through many iterations of work and painting, exploring different things in my time because I was teaching, and maybe that was a way of sharing. I went through the hard-edge painting work of the 1970s and the huge, shaped canvases. I do not feel compelled to adhere to any style; I do not see the necessity. 

Throughout my career, my art has influenced how I taught, and my teaching has influenced my painting. This was clearest in my courses on aesthetics. Developing a weltanschauung or worldview is contingent on the sensory language we use to understand and feel the world around us. This course afforded me the ability to blend writing with perception. The journal became a constant in most of my classes and a valuable tool for learning. I keep journals filled with drawings and write around the edges of whatever is on the page. Sometimes, there’s a little satire, I have even used the sick bags on an airplane, if I don’t have all the materials! When I listen intently, I’ll draw it down. When I read the paper and see a word that intrigues me, I’ll try to use it to explain something broader. It is a word that allows me to put all those things together.

Painting is a different animal altogether. In grad school, I would practically fall asleep on the floor because I painted every evening and early morning. I work on one piece at a time. When I was working with different materials, I would make mocks, so I had some idea of what I was doing. I was working on large canvases, but I spent too much time constructing them; I wanted more painting time. I reacted more to how I felt then, the issue of balance and color, which is intriguing; color absorbs me. 

My high school teacher, Jim Gibbs, gave me a license during that process. He saw something in me, and he believed in it. Starting with my first experience in life drawing in high school, it felt so liberating that someone would, number one, have that much confidence in me. And number two, for me, having that experience was eye-opening.  

What’s intriguing about life drawing is that with my students, I tell them this is how I feel about still life. A still life is an oxymoron. You’re looking at something set up in a certain way, but it is still moving, breathing energy. The surface cannot arrest you; you must go beneath the surface to find out what is happening, which is true in life drawing. It must become a language for you. A way of seeing but going beyond the seeing, I can’t get people to know how to feel. That’s something I can’t teach; however, if I get you to see, eventually, the feeling will come. There are several exercises to help one see. Often, I would have my students write, which goes full circle: writing about something allows you to see it differently. My students had to assemble a list of words that are not the object, i.e., write about everything without using the actual word. If you write about curvatures, then you’re feeling them. List those things, put them in your mind, and create poetry.  

That’s amazing, relating words to objects and places, too. I think of a place as tangible because I hear and touch it, the rustle, the scratch, the sound of the footprint, the water, the wind, I don’t see grass; I feel the grass.

That’s very important; a poet goes through this. For example, Pablo Neruda wrote about how he was sitting in a chair and then he moved it outside into the tropical landscape, so he described the chair as if you were in this environment, and the chair became a living thing. It was so beautiful. His writing is captivating; I enjoy Ode to Common Things and Mary Oliver’s work. I have a friend who teaches his students to listen to poetry, as words can explain something broader. I’ve always believed that words are key to visual making. It’s more about perception and thought than sight; it’s complex. We’re so accustomed to walking past things, not noticing the sort of inherent beauty in them. I believe Keats said, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” 

Do you have any advice for artists and students?

I retired from teaching after nearly 50 years in what I consider the most rewarding profession anyone could have. I’m still in touch with some of my earliest students. Two of my former students are godparents to our two daughters. 

The best advice I could give to someone wishing to teach is not to teach, but to share. Show your passion for your subject, and don’t be afraid of being humble. There is strength in humility, so don’t let your enthusiasm be seen as a weakness. Similarly, my advice for any artist today would be not to take yourself too seriously, enjoy the process, dance with dignity, be willing to share, and be humbled by your craft. 

I would also tell students when they came into the classroom, “I know this classroom is very familiar to you, but you’re not the same person that came in yesterday. You have changed several times since then. So, who are you now? What is this place?” We are here to listen. Sometimes, something happens, and it’s a surprise. Dance with it; it is a constant dialogue.  

Do you have a particular artist or writer who has influenced you?

I feel blessed to have been influenced by so many people in my life: colleagues, fellow laborers, artists, students, and people I’ve met casually, all of whom have opened my eyes to other worlds. I’ve been influenced by places both grand and unexpected. I love the seldom seen, because in the seldom looked for, there is beauty – beauty in the mundane. I have faith that beauty lies waiting in all things; we must be present. I’ve asked my students over the years to practice that faith. To look beyond the superficial to that promise beneath. It is there that they can find the truly creative. 

More specifically Abstract Expressionism primarily because there was something liberating about that kind of work. The artists weren’t paying attention to objects and things; they were paying attention largely to emotive feelings and how color played a part. For instance, I did a course on Willem De Kooning; it was a year-long course on abstract expressionism with the de Kooning Foundation. They allowed us to show twelve of his large prints in his last plate. We went to the studio and saw his home; it was just a grand experience. De Kooning comes to mind not because of his most famous paintings, but because of the drawings and the more simplistic paintings. 

Richard Diebenkorn is also intriguing. In addition to the Ocean Park Series, I like some of his earlier landscape pieces. Hans Richter talks about being unafraid; he is the epitome because of his ability not to be narrowed down or shackled in a particular way, because he worked on what he was interested in. Mark Rothko’s work was also intriguing. There are many extraordinary women artists, too; Grace Hardigan, Joan Mitchell, and my friend, Illinois artist Ann E. Coulter. And there’s Georgia O’Keeffe – such daring simplicity to her work; the edges are powerful.

I noted that the light was very different growing up in Southern California. The intensity of the light creates shadows that are extremely hard-edged; I always love to see an object and its shadow, and then right at the object’s corner, in the object’s color, its opposite takes place. I’ve always kept the line. I remember the color’s intensity and fierceness from when I was a child; I haven’t lost that despite living in the East for half of my life.  

Have you collaborated with other people?

I collaborated on several projects with other graduate students when I was in grad school. When I was at Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts teaching during the summers, I collaborated with some of my colleagues. The San Ildefonso Potter Maria Martinez and artist Francois Gilot taught there as did the dancer Bella Lewitsky and screenwriter Ray Bradbury. It was the kind of school where all the arts were going on simultaneously. Collaborating with performance, installation, thoughts, and idea led to a great cross-pollination, cross-referencing different ways of making. It was magical. We all taught and had studios that were in proximity. Just being in that creative mix was powerful. One year, I had kids from the ABC (A Better Chance) program from Chicago. Being in the woods in Idyllwild was transformational; they were so talented, and we had a blast. I have curated many shows, which I prefer to being the participating artist. However, I used to show on the West Coast, and my work sells through word of mouth as I resist the hunt for representation in a gallery.  

What do you do when you get to a creative block?

What comes to mind is what Robert Rauschenberg once said: He would walk around the block to find objects to paint, and someone asked him, “What happens if you do not find anything?” He replied, “I just walk around the block again, keep looking.” Keep looking; there are things to be seen. 

I had this marvelous exercise a few years back with a former student from Millbrook, now a photographer in Los Angeles. He and I collaborated using photography. Our rules were that for 30 days, we must take ten pictures a day, and we won’t collaborate on which pictures we’re taking, but the objective is to find beauty in the mundane. We sent them to each other daily so we could critique and compare them. After 30 days, and 30 critiques and comparisons, we paired images, one on each page of a book, which we published with the title, Pairings. A delightful exercise is when artists have conversations with each other, and there is collaboration. 

It’s like when you’re painting. In the process of painting, you are kind of reliving a moment. This reliving is emotionally attached to color and a promise. There’s always a promise there: You can’t get away with being arrogant. That’s what I love about it. It makes me feel human, allows me to understand humility.  

Yes, I feel any form of written or creative process is a humbling process. It’s bigger than you are. You’re not the creator; you happen to be the tool. When you’re making, you’re just doing; it just happens. 

It’s intuitive; it means that my being is telling me, go this way, do this. We’re fortunate, it’s fun. I’m happy to be back at it. Our bookshelves were recently made, so I have all the wood end clippings. My next project is montage and collage. I’ve tried many different things over the years, and it’s all good. It’s just the act of painting on the surface that makes me feel so privileged.  

Hardy’s vibrant work is a joy to witness in person; the paint literally dances on the surface exuding a wonderful energy, colors talk to each other, and his paintings likewise converse across the wall. •

To see more of Bill Hardy’s work go to his Instagram, @billhardy_art, or email him directly at BHardy@millbrook.org.