An interview with an Australian musician about art & roses. Writer, guitarist and visual artist, John Hardaker
Janice: John: I first became aware of your work as an artist through your sharing of your visual diaries.What outlets do they provide for you.
John: I have been keeping my journals since 1981 and their function has gone though changes as I have.
Initially they were notebooks to keep ideas I had from disappearing into the ether. These included visual ideas, musical ideas, recipes, quotes and even short stories.
As i moved on in my life they became a fun place to go to draw and write lyrics and artistically experiment with a view that the works were now just for the journals.
After I had children they became much more reflective and a space where I could work through ideas about life in all its new challenges. Re-reading those pages now is partly embarrassing (what a serious young insect I was!), partly quite touching (I really sweated the small stuff!) and also unintentionally funny.
Prior to the pandemic I found I was using them mainly in visual and literary experiments with a smattering of Word of the Day, Quote of the Week and Idea of the Month (I love useless knowledge). Since the beginning of the pandemic, before we learned to 'live with it’, I found I began keeping a day-to-day diary - something i have never really done (except, for some reason, when we went on holidays…).
Was it because I thought I could die any day? Was it because each day became more precious? Or maybe the small things stood out in higher relief as time slowed and our movement became limited?
Lately I have been experimenting a lot again with different materials - one fork led me to my current drawings of roses.
I have often thought of discontinuing them, but after 41 years of almost daily input, they have become another limb that i can’t bear to chop off.
Janice: It seems we have a lot in common with both music and a love of drawing. Tell us about your current musical escapades and artworks.
John: Yes, we do! I know so many musicians who also have a visual art outlet.
I have always been a visual person, and I ’see’ music as I listen to or play it. Not to the extent of synasthesia but there is always a suggestion of light and dark, weightless and heavy in visual terms.
I find it easy to remember complex arrangements and tricky chord changes (bossa nova!) by seeing them as shapes in a ‘map’.
But I cannot draw and listen to music at the same time. There is no such thing as ‘background’ music to me. Either one or the other commands my attention.
Musically I have three quite distinctly different bands going. One is Whiskey Empire, a dynamic 6-piece fronted by two killer soul-blues singers Leslea Clements and Shannon Carswell. Shannon is also the jazz singer in my Standards Project which unashamedly covers the Great American Songbook (beautiful songs).
Thirdly i have a little jazz combo called the John Hardaker Direction - a free flowing jazz trio or quartet or quintet as the gig allows - currently featuring a very talented young double-bassist and vocailst named Sarah Angel Homeh.
Gigs have been sporadic since the pandemic hit but we have managed to get a few in.
Artwise I have recently, as mentioned above, set out on a series of drawings of roses using inks and shiraz (yes, the wine) which makes a lovely subtle dye.
Why roses? I don’t really know - we have had vases of cut roses in the house and as they grow from buds or dry and die they seem a metaphor for the fleeting nature of beauty. yes, trite and corny I know, but it does resonate with me. I draw the line with a chopstick dipped in ink so the line becomes spontaneously expressive. I am enjoying the process.
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