A creative lifetime with Jim Hardie by Linda Mellor

Follow your star

Words and images by Linda Mellor

“A sense of humour is important as well. It all comes together if you find joy in it all.”

As Painter, Poet and Pilot Jim Hardie approaches 83, he is still painting. The Scottish Artist shares his outlook on life, art, and adventure.

By Linda Mellor

When looking forward to an approaching birthday, most octogenarians have slowed down. The winter of life is the season of rest, a time for sitting back and recalling life’s accomplishments. In April, Artist James Watterson Hardie (Jim) turns 83 years old, he may have decelerated but he shows no sign of stopping. Since his teenage years, Jim’s output as a painter has flowed to produce a vast collection of work. We talked to Jim, and explored his life immersed in art and asked him how he remains motivated to paint. How do you do it? “Don’t be interested in yourself, be interested in everything else,” replied Jim. The Scottish painter, pilot and poet lives in Skelmorlie on the west coast and has a multidimensional connection to Scotland. Jim has walked the hills, and flown over the land, navigated the seas and sailed the lochs, to fuel his lifelong voyage in art. Since the 1950s, he has owned many interesting vehicles to transport him on his next adventure: Brough Superior with a sidecar, 1948 Velocette LE, Bristol 406, a few boats, and perhaps the most unusual, a vintage German plane he rebuilt in his garage in Skelmorlie. Born in Motherwell, Jim grew up in a large family squeezed into a small house in Larkhall. “When I was a wee boy, I couldn’t understand why a two-week family holiday in August was such a special thing and the rest of the year was dead ordinary. Traditionally, the first fortnight in August was the sunniest so office workers like my dad always booked the annual family holiday then. I really enjoyed the holiday. From the age of five to twelve, I imagined there had to be something else, and more in life to look forward to than two weeks of the year.” Jim laughed, “I thought I could make life one long holiday.” Jim regularly adventured to faraway lands on his hand-me-down bike. He clocked up many miles as he explored different places, stopping to adsorb his new surroundings and to sketch before he returned back home for tea. At 12 years old, a solo cycling trip to Prestwick and back was not uncommon. The epic journey to the coast was a big adventure for the boy from landlocked Larkhall. Jim said, “Prestwick seemed so much bigger than Larkhall, I can still recall the sense of excitement when I arrived in Prestwick on my bike, and the feeling of relief at finding a small, subtle sign pointing down a street, with the words, ‘The shorefront’.” Jim would set off towards the sea with his trunks and sandwiches packed in his bag. Within minutes he was down at the shore, where he looked out across the vast Firth of Clyde and to Isle of Arran on the horizon. He swam in the sea, and ate his sandwiches, before he cycled back home to Larkhall. Jim’s future in art started to take shape when he was 12 years old. During Jim’s first year at Larkhall Academy, an art teacher called Jim Barclay, turned up in class one day with a bundle of paper and paints then asked pupils to paint. Jim said, “I thought great, this is fun! They had given us sugar paper, horrible stuff to paint on, it was so thin, and the paint dried quickly”.

As the class settled down to paint, Jim painted a scene from the fairground at Larkhall: a favourite place he had been fascinated by. His work brought the class to a standstill. “I was lost in my painting. They couldn’t believe what they were looking at. Other art teachers were called in to the class to look at my work. Up until that point no-one had taken much interest in me.” Afterwards, Mr Barclay had taken Jim to one side and told him his drawing was of a standard expected of a 4th year student at the Glasgow School of Art. Jim said, “having someone believe in you and giving you support makes a difference. It fires your imagination.” At 17, Jim’s pilgrimage in art gathered momentum when he left school to study at the Glasgow School of Art. “I worked really hard and competed during my years as a student.” His diligent approach was rewarded, and from early on, his achievements stood out: wining the Keith Award (1958), the Chalmers Bursary (1959), which enabled him to travel France and Holland where he met Theo Van Gogh, Vincent Van Gogh’s nephew. In 1968, Jim won The Torrance Award and in 1971 first prize in Arbroath Art Festival. He describes himself as a project painter. His first project was Fife Ness, 1962- 68, and in 1967 the Royal College of Art, London made a film about Jim called ‘The Painter’s Landscape’ exploring his project in Fife Ness. He taught painting at the Glasgow School of Art and Aberdeen College of Education and lectured in art at Glasgow University and spent time in the USA as an exchange tutor with The Art Institute of Chicago. Jim has had one man shows with the Compass Gallery in Glasgow, The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh and The Charles Jahn Gallery in Chicago and many others. His works are held in several public collections including the Scottish Arts Council, Stirling, Strathclyde, Leicester, Liverpool and Stockholm Universities, and the Aberdeen City Art Gallery. In 1972, Jim got his pilot’s licence and regularly flew to Shetland, Orkney, Hebrides, Moray and Aberdeenshire to teach art to his students. Some twenty years later, in the early 90s, Jim discovered the remains of an old plane, a Messerschmitt 208 (Nord 1101), in field near Prestwick Airport. For the next 13 – 14 years, Jim rebuilt the 1940s plane in his garden shed in Skelmorlie. The shed was extended as the plane’s rebuild progressed. It was known locally as the ‘Skelmorlie Messerschmitt’. Jim had parts engineered locally and embarked on numerous trips to Europe to source the missing components. The Messerschmitt took to the air in 2005 with Jim in the cockpit, and flew over Scottish skies on many adventures, and inspired a huge body of work: painting, poetry, a play, film-making and writing a book (The Naked Pilot by James Hardie, see page 77). In 2014, when Jim was 76, he stopped flying and sold the aircraft to Messerschmitt enthusiasts in Italy. As a working artist with more than six decades of experience, what are the key aspects to a successful and fulfilling creative life? “Don’t be so easily influenced by others, you have to do it your way and be practical,” said Jim.

“When I left Art School I didn’t sit around and wait, instead, I left Glasgow and went to work as a teacher in Fife, and continued painting. Now that was practical. You also have to have an imagination to see how to do things, and that gives you an understanding. As a child I was always told I had too much imagination as if it was a bad thing. Being able to really see things helped me tremendously.” He laughed, “as you age you gain so much out of life, and you don’t want to get to the end too quickly.” Jim continued, “you have to be on your own to explore, be curious and receptive, and use your senses to find your own connections. I used to think curiosity was being greedy, but you get ideas, and your senses are alive.” What about clocking up the decades and getting on in years, is age a help or a hindrance? “Sometimes, as we get older, we have to adapt to the health challenges, I know I had to, but we have so much experience and that shouldn’t stop you getting a lot out of things. I have never been bored in my life.” Jim laughed, “and a sense of humour is important as well!” “It all comes together if you find joy in it all. If you don’t get fun, the world isn’t such a nice place and what fun I’ve had!” Location plays a part in the creative dynamic, Jim told us, “Scotland has given me what I needed to paint for over 60 years. It’s the mark of an artist to recognise what he needs. Art comes from what’s there and what you’ve got, and I have Scotland.” Currently, Jim is painting portraits as part of his family & friends project and plans to exhibit his work later in 2021.