It?s a small, modest studio, but it suits the veteran artist just fine.
From an adjacent mudroom, he carries a large portfolio into the kitchen. He carefully rests the folder on the oval, wooden dining table next to his supplies closet, aligns two chairs back to back about two feet apart and places a thin board on top of them ? his drawing board.
The portfolio, now on the board, unfolds, andCharles Hazard?s latest project comes to life.
“Man,” said Hazard, 60, as he flips through the black-and-white sketches, “I really did a lot of stuff for them.”
After a lengthy career as a political and graphic illustrator for publications in the Baltimore region, including The Examiner, Hazard, you could say, has come out of retirement. He?s penciled 14 original illustrations of scenes from the Battle of Gettysburg that will be displayed with exhibits at the new Museum and Visitor Center at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, scheduled to open in April.
There couldn?t be a more fitting project to rejuvenate Hazard?s creative sprit. Hazard, a Baltimore boy who was born with artistic talent in his blood, grew up with a fascination for American history, especially the Civil War. He held on to that curiosity through adulthood, which included a 13-month tour in Vietnam in the late 1960s.
“It?s an honor to be asked to do something for a museum that?s going to be around for the next 100 years,” Hazard said.
From Vietnam to Gettysburg
Hazard (nicknamed “Hap” for an obvious reason) was born and raised in West Baltimore in a family full of artists. His mother and father, Stella and Charles, both artists who met at the Maryland Institute College of Art ? then the Maryland Institute of Art ? before the start of World War II.
“We (Hazard and his sister) grew up around art, all different types of art,” Hazard said. “It was just natural to pursue that field.”
His parents pushed his passion, regardless of any potential consequences.
He was in sixth grade, riding the bus to a private Catholic school, when Hazard?s adolescent imagination spilled onto his notepad. His grandfather, a sailor during World War I, had told him stories about women who, for the right price, disrobed for male entertainment.
With an image in mind, Hazard drew his first “hootchy-kootchy girl,” complete with gyrating body parts and fishnet stockings. It was a good sketch, so much so that it got Hazard in trouble with a nun at his school. She confiscated the drawing and alerted Hazard?s parents.
“Your son was drawing very naughty pictures on the bus,” the nun said.
Hazard?s mother, now 92 and still doing artwork for greeting cards, did her best to defend her son, saying he was encouraged to express himself artistically.
“Mrs. Hazard,” the nun began, “this is not art!”
“They pleaded on my behalf,” Hazard said, laughing.
After graduating from Calvert Hall College High School, Hazard, like his parents, enrolled in the Maryland Institute of Art. With the Vietnam War raging, Hazard, who was eligible for the draft and struggling in one of his sophomore classes, decided to beat the Army to the punch. He enlisted and found his niche in military intelligence.
He was sent to El Paso, Texas, where he learned Vietnamese and joined the Vietnamese-American intelligence unit. He was in Vietnam from the summer of 1968 to the summer of 1969, but he doesn?t talk much about what he did or saw away from home.
“Although it?s exciting when you?re young, it was a little bit disturbing,” Hazard said. “I served my country, I was honorably discharged, I came back home and started working.”
A sketch Hazard keeps in his portfolio tells part of the story: A Viet Cong prisoner crouches low to the ground, his knees up to his chest, his hands behind his back and a cloth wrapped over his eyes.
“I always had a book or something to write on back then,” Hazard said, holding the small sketch, dated 1969.
Home again, Hazard, who married his wife, Miriam, in 1968 before he went to Vietnam, began his work as a political illustrator for The Sun in Baltimore. Duringa career that spanned more than 30 years, Hazard created illustrations that addressed some of history?s most memorable political events, like Watergate, the Cold War and the rise of terrorism.
A tough job market eventually pushed Hazard from the field more than four years ago. He stayed busy, with four children and five grandchildren, maintaining his Owings Mills home and later working at a local tobacco shop. Artwork, though still a part of his life, took a backseat.
But at the beginning of February, Hazard?s phone rang. The Gettysburg Foundation was calling.
The foundation was nearing completion of its new museum at Gettysburg National Military Park, and it asked Hazard to meet a fast-approaching deadline: 14 original pencil illustrations and 15 technical pen-and-ink diagrams were needed by the end of the summer.
Hazard appreciated the turn his life had taken. He accepted the job and traveled to Gettysburg, where he walked in the steps of Union and Confederate soldiers and created artwork detailing military history, one of his personal passions.
“It was nice to see him get back into it,” said Miriam, Hazard?s wife of almost 40 years. “He was happy to be working again, and it just made sense and came together nicely.”
There was a personal connection for Hazard, too. Hazard?s great-great-grandfather, James H. Douglass, a Union soldier, was actually captured during the Civil War on June 17, 1863, just a few weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg. Douglass was apprehended trying to cross the Potomac River and was held in Libby Prison in Richmond, for a few months. Hazard said Douglass later fought in the Battle of Monocacy outside Frederick in July 1864.
“When you?re a kid and you hear these stories, I thought, ?Man, that?s really neat,? ” Hazard said. “I?ve always felt the history of Gettysburg.”
Moments in time
Antiquing is another Hazard passion, and it actually helped him land the Gettysburg assignment. Hazard regularly visits an antique shop in Gettysburg owned by Sue Boardman, coordinator of the new Museum and Visitor Center at Gettysburg.
Hazard, Boardman said, would search the shop, make a purchase and later create artwork to display with the relic. His work caught Boardman?s attention, and when the Gettysburg Foundation needed someone to pen the 14 illustrations, Boardman immediately suggested Hazard.
“He?s a collector of Civil War history,” Boardman said. “I guess the word would be, he?s credible.”
Boardman, who knows the battlefield inside and out, appreciates Hazard?s attention to military detail.
“When he places a soldier on the road, shooting a weapon, I know that?s what it would look like ? it?s like taking a picture of the action,” she said. “His artwork is very fluid, and there?s a lot of movement.”
Hazard?s illustrations will be part of three displays in the museum that document the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg from July 1 to July 3, 1863. The illustrations identify key moments of the battle, from “The First Shot” to “Lee?s Dilemma” to “Is the Battle Over?”
The illustrations will be displayed above exhibits, and text related to the event will be superimposed on Hazard?s work.
“This is the heart of what the museum is about,” said Elliott Gruber, vice president of the Gettysburg Foundation, who is overseeing the museum?s construction and design.
“The First Shot” depicts a Union soldier, with his weapon ready, watching and waiting behind a fence while Confederate soldiers walk along a road in the distance.
“With Charles, what we like about him is his knowledge of the Civil War and his expertise,” Gruber said. “We knew we were going to get sketches that were historically accurate. You never had to say, ?I love the sketch, but the rifle is wrong.? With Charles, that was never an issue.”
More to come
Hazard?s personal studio extends from his kitchen to his living room and his front porch. The images were conceived in Gettysburg, but Hazard spent the majority of his working time at home, bringing the battle to life.
In the living room, Hazard rests his drawing board on the back of a small couch. On the porch, he sits in a lawn chair with the board in his lap.
“You don?t need a fancy studio to do all these sketches ? it?s what you focus on, and not the surroundings,” Hazard said, sitting outside. “It?s perfect during the day. I can smoke my pipe and listen to the radio.”
Each illustration took about four to six hours to complete, with time added to rework the details and perfect the pictures.
The project now complete, Hazard waits for the museum to open and his artwork to go on display. The creative return has rejuvenated Hazard, and he?s looking to take on more projects as he reflects on his long career.
“You go on so many different assignments, and when you get to look at all of this together, you say, ?Wait a minute, I?ve been a lot of places and done a lot of things,? ” he said.
His latest assignment took him to Gettysburg, but he?ll always be all Baltimore, where his artistic talents were groomed and practiced.
“All the work has been done here,” Hazard said, standing over his portfolio and kitchen table. “So many drawings were done on this table, I sent my kids through private school and college.
“And you can quote me on this. I really drew my ass off.”
Artist Charles “Hap” Hazard looks over several of the drawings he has made for his Gettysburg display.
Hazard’s art is on a large scale.
An early sketch by artist Hazard for his Gettysburg display shows great detail.
