Peter Hazel worked for 20 years as a master tile worker and contractor in Half Moon Bay. In 2011, he created his first piece of art — a simple bird fountain as a wedding gift for a friend. From that time forward, he started dreaming of things to create, big things — no one would mistake what they were seeing. This act of creation became his life purpose, “a calling deeper than anything I have ever known before.”
He continues: “I never knew in my early years that this is where my life would wind up. My art gives me a sense of meaning in life. I feel like I am pulling together all of the struggles, the heartbreaks, the hard lessons learned and transforming them into something beautiful, colorful, and full of light. I am transforming the past sixty years of my life into pure light and sharing it with the world.”
Hazel’s abiding interest in nature — the overall theme behind his art — was ignited on backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada with his father. They caught brook trout, his favorite fish species and the subject of his first art piece, which is installed in Kings Beach on Lake Tahoe, where he lived for 30 years.
He also used to catch steelhead and other fish in Pescadero Creek near Half Moon Bay, and pursued deep-sea fishing and abalone diving. From these activities grew his lifelong fascination with creatures that live in water.
For the past few months, he has lived in Reno, where he also has a studio. Peter Hazel continues to create stunning mosaic sculptures in ceramic, tile, and glass, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional. He prefers large-scale work, such as his current project, a 45-foot-tall glass-and-steel jellyfish sculpture.
The most common form of mosaic seen today consists of small rectangular or irregular-shaped pieces of ceramic or glass put together to form a pattern or image. Random mosaic has a certain primitive charm, but Hazel strives to create something far finer than this. The process of creating a three-dimensional piece is incredibly time consuming and labor intensive, but the finished results are stunningly beautiful.
All the ceramic pieces used in his sculptures are handmade in his studio, and each sculpture, with its many thousands of pieces, has its own uniquely shaped tiles, which are cut, glazed, and fired individually.
His larger sculptures have a steel-and-concrete armature, which makes an incredibly strong, rigid core on which to bond the ceramic tiles. Once bonded and dry, the mosaic is grouted with an ultrahigh-strength epoxy grout that is impervious to staining or fading. This, together with the vitrifying of the clay, ensures that the sculptures are the perfect choice for indoor or outdoor display.
Hazel states: “That my art, and art in general, has the power to transform, to evoke emotion and bring a person outside of themselves — this is why I make art, to pull me outside of myself, but also to conjure this magic that I feel in other people’s hearts.”
Hazel’s work is displayed in municipalities in Western states and in private homes across the country. (What sparked this article was this writer seeing one of Peter’s large fish sculptures on display on posh El Paseo Drive in Palm Desert.) The piece shown below is a sculptural mosaic titled The Hatch.
Peter Hazel’s work can be viewed at www.peterhazel.com.
