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Swarthmore College

Barbara Hazard Obituary

Barbara Jackson Hazard

December 1, 1931 - July 28, 2019

Barbara Jackson Hazard, 87, artist, died peacefully on July 28 in Berkeley. Born in New York City, she attended Swarthmore College. She married Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., later a professor at Berkeley Law, and had 3 children. They divorced in 1971, and Barbara moved back to California to pursue a career as an artist. For many years she summered in the Thousand Islands in Ontario/upstate New York.

She traveled to Russia in the 1980s as an anti-nuclear activist and befriended many unofficial artists in St. Petersburg, learning the Russian language. Her brilliantly colorful paintings, quilts, and needlepoint have been shown in the U.S. and Russia. She has published books of her poetry and drawings, as well as a memoir of her association with the Russian artists during Glasnost.

Her wide-ranging curiosity, deep love for her friends and family, and her zeal for life will be terribly missed. She is survived by her children James Hazard, Katherine Hazard, and Robin Hazard Ray, her beloved in-laws Christina Hazard and David Ray, partner of 17 years Richard Seaman, brother William Jackson and his wife Susan, numerous grandchildren, and an army of friends. A memorial service will be arranged for a later date. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to your local public radio station, art institution or other cause she cared about. Raise a glass in her memory.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by San Francisco Chronicle from Jul. 30 to Jul. 31, 2019.

Memories and Condolences
for Barbara Hazard

12 Entries

Bill Denham

July 24, 2025

Blessings, Barbara and to all your family and extended family and distant fiends, of whom I consider myself one, thou your generous spirt always was open and inviting and inclusive, certainly a model we need in today's rapid slide into fascism and hatred. I hold on to your spirit and I try to honor it to the best of my ability. Thank you, Barbara, thank you, thank you, "thirteen thank yous."

Katherine Hazard

July 12, 2025

I am so touched by the entries here. I still miss Barbara every day. I was so fortunate, as her daughter, to have her in my life so dearly and for so many years, and in so many places and treasured adventures.

Bill Denham

July 24, 2024

You know, it has been five years since Barbara left us and yet her memory burns as brightly as ever in my heart . . . what an easy person to love, such an open and generous heart . . . I imagine she would be thrilled by Kamala's presence on the Democratic ticket . . . though I have no idea really . . . I will hold on to my memories of Barbara as long as I am granted breath . . . "Bless her heart," as my Mother, that diminutive North Carolina farm girl, would say . . .

Bill Denham

July 24, 2023

"in the BBC CAFÉ" by Barbara Hazard, an artist and poet in Berkeley California whom I first met as a carpenter working on repairing her fence. I did numerous projects for her home on Arch Street in Berkeley and we became friends. She attended a number of our poetry evenings at Howard Curtis´ on Milvia Street and June and I attended her 80th birthday party at the Hillside Club in Berkeley in 2012 (?). For $25 she allowed me to pick which ever painting I wanted when she was trying to make space in her studio. Frame by Bill Denham. Loaned to Auryn, my grandson, in 2019.

June loved Barbara´s poetry and the book, Pentimento. She had several copies and she gave it as a gift, though I don´t remember the recipients. June would often read the title poem at our poetry gatherings, pre-Covid lockdown, though as her Parkinson´s progressed, pronunciation and enunciation and projection became more difficult. But Parkinson´s did not daunt her spirit and her love of life and of beauty. She passed over December 29, 2021 at the age od 80.

Pentimento

... a high flown word
meaning that you didn´t like
what was on the canvas at first
and you covered it up
with another layer of paint.

You are not through with it, though
Time has its way, and its truth...
One day you will be staring blankly
at the wall where you hung the finished piece
and you begin to see those mud-colored
streaks, the blood, and the black barbs
you thought you had hidden. it is not
your imagination-science
can confirm this. Now you will have to
peel and scrape, sponge and scrub
until what you thought was hidden
is there for all to see.

You take a look.
Maybe by now mud and black
have become your favorite colors.
You may even be embarrassed
by the gold and peachy scrapings
on the floor, the sunrise blues
in which you thought to hide.
Maybe you see some order
in tis dark chaos,
some beauty in its ferocity.
Maybe it belongs to you at last.

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Averell Manes

July 24, 2023

I still miss you, Barbara. I´m so lucky to have a number of your beautiful pieces of art around my home and I think of you often, like the painting of tiger lilies, or the brightly colored frog needlepoint, or the beautiful patchwork quilt you made for my mother. You lived in extraordinary life.
Love to your family.

Averell Manes

July 25, 2021

I miss Barbara a lot. I hope she and Mom and Francie are together again laughing at all our foibles and sending us their love and strength. Xo

Bill Denham

July 26, 2020

Father, I Have Forgotten

Forgotten
are the Kings of England,
the dates of battles
and the farewell speech
of Julius Cesar . . .
or was it Mark Antony?
Gone to some internal limbo
are sine and cosine, the square
of the hypotenuse
and how to tell the red pine
from the black.

But I remember days with you--
days in the gray beech forests of my childhood.
I remember the slow swish of oars at evening
and how the sun dropped red beyond the reeds
and the yellow moon entered the glowing sky.
Then the windows across the way
blinked orange as the earth grew dark
and we listened to the loon complain
on the slow river. Later, on the radio,
the clarinet sang of loss
and of the tenderness of time.

Of course, I remember Barbara's art, but I truly loved her for her incredible skill with words . . . an unbelievable poet, as this early childhood memory testifies. She lives on in my heart, primarily through her poems . . . and memories of our encounters--always so open and welcoming--an inspiring spirit, for sure.

Melody Ermachild

July 24, 2020

A year has gone by?! I have thought of Barbara nearly daily. We are lucky to live with her paintings and so we are with her all the time. One lesson from her life that stays with me is the way she blossomed into her over-70s bonus years, quilting, painting, writing, traveling, falling in love. What an example she made for her children, grandchildren and friends. Love to you all, Melody

BH painting with wall and reading lights

Sybil Meyer

September 13, 2019

Remembering and missing my dear friend Barbara, whose paintings have filled my home with joyful color and lively shapes for the last forty years. She had a deep belly laugh and a wise and loving heart.

I painted my bedroom to match my favorite of her brussels sprout series and slept at the root of that wonderful image for the thirty years I lived on College Ave.

Still enjoying her art work every day!

Bill Denham

September 9, 2019

I was saddened to discover, today--September 9, 2019--of Barbara's death. I met Barbara in the late '90s or early 2000's. I did carpentry work on her home on Arch Street in Berkeley--remodeled the downstairs studio, rebuilt her fence, added a handrail to her front entrance way, among other projects I don't recall.

Over the years we became friends and shared our poetry and her art. I remember her coming to one or maybe several of our Berkeley first Wednesday poetry salons that began at Grace North Church and were later hosted by Howard Curtis on MIlvia Avenue. I remember attending her 80th Birthday Party at the Hillside Club on Cedar, I think, in Berkeley with my wife, June.

After moving to Portland in 2013, I remember visiting with Barbara in her studio on, was it 4th Street just south of Gilman. And I also recall going to her Magpie opening and other shows. We have one of her pieces, a pastel drawing of a bar scene in St Petersburg, "in the BBC CAFE", seen from the perspective of the overhead mirrors around the walls--a light brown haired male customer on the right crashed, sound asleep on the circular, tablecloth covered table; seen from above, a single brownish-red haired male customer in the upper left eating with chopsticks, a gray, short haired female and male couple in the front center with the woman looking up, directly at the artist (in the mirror) and in the lower right, the head of a man who appears to be licking his fingers. I bought the painting from Barbara for $25 at one of her "studio garage sales" just as she was making room for her quilting projects.

Though we were not close in any sense, we had an easy comfortable connection which I imagine to be the case with anyone Barbara met. I loved her artwork and her poetry and we have her story of her experience in Russia: Off Nevsky Prospekt and Pentimento, her bi-lingual book of poetry and art and June, my wife, has shared more than one of Barbara's poems at local poetry readings and open mics here in Portland.

I found Barbara to be an exceptional human being and have been blessed to have had the connection we had.

May she rest in peace and blessings to her partner, her children, siblings, in-laws and friends who will miss her incredible smile and sense of humor, as well as, her depth, and her of perspective on the world she inhabited.

Melody Ermachild Chavis

August 8, 2019

I had the privilege of meeting for years in a group of women writers with Barbara. She was an excellent writer, each word chosen as if for a poem. We all enjoyed her humor, her artistic aesthetic. We met often at her art and book-filled home. Such good memories! I have many -- dancing at her 80th birthday at the Hillside Club is a highlight. She looked beautiful and so happy. We have two paintings...a Point Reyes landscape in tawny California colors and a colorful scene of people in Russia sharing a meal around a table. They capture big parts of Barbara's amazing bi-Continental life. I've always been so proud to have been her friend. We loved to go to her openings, readings, and art shows. She lived a rich life to the fullest. Following her example,I'll try to be like Barbara: true to her art, to adventure and to love above all.

August 2, 2019

I will miss Barbara for the rest of my life! She was my mother's most treasured friend and she was an important role model for me all of my life. During her last year, she lived with the same grace and engagement as my earliest memories of her. The loss of her will be difficult for a long time to come. Fortunately, I have many memories and her works of art that will keep her in my heart.

Love,

Averell

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