The motivation for design comes from an unfailing sense of wonder about light and its effects on the form of everyday images.

Robert E. Buchanan

Color does not add a pleasant quality to design – it reinforces it. 

Pierre Bonnard

Art's whatever you choose to frame. 

Fleur Adcock

Every morning I am a beginner.

Hanya Holm

The round room overlooking the tower in the front yard.

The sculptural bell tower near Alamo Square in 2011

I began construction on the tower in 1998. The tower is built entirely of found objects, many of them historically significant. The tower is covered with bells, chimes, and sound-makers. When the wind blows, the tower becomes a symphony of sounds.

The sounds of the tower

Pen, ink, & paper collage by R H

1984

Collage is a supersensitive and scrupulously accurate instrument, similar to a seismograph, which is able to record the exact amount of the possibility of human happiness at any period. 

Max Ernst

The entrance to the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University

Detail of the west side of the tower near the base

Every normal human being (and not merely the 'artist') has an inexhaustible store of buried images in his subconscious, it is merely a matter of courage or liberating procedures ... of voyages into the unconscious, to bring pure and unadulterated found objects to light. 

Max Ernst

Statues at the base of the tower on the west side

Creativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition. 

Max Ernst

 

Mr. H. on stage in front of the podium.

On Saturday October 1, 2011, Dr. Goodall gave the keynote speech at the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) Expo in San Francisco, California. 

Click here: The story Mr. H. Not your Average Stuffed Monkey

Sunrise from my window in the round room

2011

Every morning is like a new reincarnation into this world. Let us take it then for what it is and live each moment anew. 

Paul Brunton

The artist performs only one part of the creative process. The onlooker completes it, and it is the onlooker who has the last word. 

Marcel Duchamp

 

A detail inside of the tower

The sounds of the tower

Bryan

Pen, ink, & paper collage by R H

1986

 

The tower in 2010

The sounds of the tower

December 2006

A figure on the south side of the tower's foundation

Color is the fruit of life. 

Guillaume Apollinaire

Fred Baumer

2009

Technology & Interior Aesthetics 

From building the railroad that connected a growing nation to supporting the experiments in photography that laid the groundwork for motion pictures, the Stanfords were champions of technological progress. Their interest in emerging technologies was evident throughout their household: photographs hug on the walls (whereas other elites would show only traditional paintings) plus a photo-viewing contraption--the Megalethoscope--featured prominently in their living room.

Megalethoscope 1866-1867 

Wood, metal, and glass 

by Carlo Ponti Italy, c. 1823-1893

Stanford Arts Center

Detail of the tower's foundation on the north side

The shadow of the tower

 

The artist is a spectator, indifferent or impassioned, at the birth of his work, and observes the phases of its development. 

Max Ernst

The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. 

Marcel Duchamp

 

Inside of the tower on the east side

Beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love.

Rabindranath Tagore

Peter Albert

2015

Vairochana

(Chinese:Palushena, Japanese:Birushana) 

Copper alloy 

China, Ming dynasty (1368-1644) 

Vairochana (the "Illuminator," literally "Coming from the Sun") is one of five Transcendent or Dyani Buddhas. Here, he is depicted as described in the Brahmajalasutra, seated upon a lotus with a 1,000 petals thaat emit 100,000 Buddhas, each of whom will teach the doctrine to a different universe.

Stanford Arts Center

Dragon, 19th century 

Crysral, bronze, and silver-gilt 

Japan, Meiji period (1868-1912)

Aaron

2011

Pen, ink, & paper collage by R H

1986

Sunrise from the round room window

2017

 

Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies on the wind. 

Guillaume Apollinaire

 

May Day Parade in East Berlin, by Mark Anstendig

Mark Anstendig photography

2009

Part of the tower's foundation on the north side

I succeeded in simply attending at the birth of all my works. 

Max Ernst

The figure at the entrance into the tower's interior

The southwest side of the tower the front yard

The sounds of the tower

We are all of us, unique - each a unique pattern of creativity and if we do not fulfill it, it is lost for all time.

Martha Graham

 

 

The west side of the tower

We should realize in a vivid and revolutionary sense that we are not in our bodies but our bodies are in us.

Ruth St. Denis

Giovanni

2011

St. Francisco of Assisi in the front yard near the tower.

The cherub on the right marks the grave site of my hairless cat Francisco.

Francisco (5 months old)

2007

Francisco

2009

Pen, ink, & paper collage by R H

1986

Viktoria, 1999 

Unique cast bronze 

Deborah Butterfield U.S.A. b.1949 

Deborah Butterfield studied art at the University of California at Davis before moving to a ranch in Bozeman Montana in 1976. Since then she has focused solely on the subject of the mare, producing six to ten horses each year in an inexhaustible exploration of the material and form. With each sculpture, Butterfield endows the animal with its own unique and complex personality that is dependent on the materials she uses and on her mood as she is working; these materials have included mud, wire, twigs, found metal, and bronze. 

Viktoria was cast in bronze from an original model made of driftwood. The technique is especially notworthy for its striking resemblance to wood's natural texture, shape, and color. In this particular horse, Butterfield captured the gesture, power, and beauty as in a classical equestrian study.

 

Plaster Death Mask of Leland Stanford Jr. 1884
After Leland Jr.’s death from typhoid fever in 1884 in Florence, Italy, the boy’s grieving parents requested this last remembrance of their son, a death mask cast in plaster from a wax facial mold made at the time of the body’s preparation for burial.

On display at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University

Stanford University was founded by Leland Stanford, a railroad magnate, U.S. senator, and former California governor, together with his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford. It is named in honor of their only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., who died in 1884 just before his 16th birthday. His parents decided to dedicate a university to their only son, and Leland Stanford told his wife, "The children of California shall be our children."

Text

To awaken human emotion is the highest level of art.

Isadora Duncan

Derk

2009

Left to right- R H, Liz Fracchia, Anita Denz, Charles Fracchia

Charles is a Fellow of the California Historical Society, and the Founder and President Emeritus of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society. Fracchia was one of the founders of Rolling Stone magazine.

Detail of the statue presiding over the atrium of the Cantor Arts Center

The Cantor Arts Center boasts a proud and venerable history, as it was conceived of in tandem with the founding of Stanford University itself. The Stanford family, including Leland Jr., traveled the world collecting objects of art and cultural interest. The museum was originally created to make this collection available to students and the public.

https://museum.stanford.edu/explore/museum_history.html

Gold Rush San Francisco

 

Detail of: Dragon, 19th century 

Ivory

Japan, Meiji period (1868-1912)

Yves

2009

Screen, 2005

ABS and stainless steel 

Do Ho Suh (South Korea, b. 1962) 

 

Cliff House and the Sutro Bath ruins

San Francisco

2006

Top photo: R H with Virgil Thomson

circa 1984

The tower in the front yard

2011

The sounds of the tower

Strong and convincing art has never arisen from theories.

Mary Wigman

Carl

2011

The Hoover Tower at Leland Stanford Jr. University in Palo Alto.
Leland Stanford Junior University, or more commonly Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. It is one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

What I am interested in doing is finding and expressing a new form of life.

Isadore Duncan

Pen, ink, & paper collage by R H

1986

Sailor

by Mark Anstendig

Mark Anstendig photography

 

To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams. 

Giorgio de Chirico

We have the capacity to receive messages from the stars and the songs of the night winds.

Ruth St. Denis

Francisco (San Francisco)

2007

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

by Mark Anstendig

Mark Anstendig photography

 

 

The top of the tower, as seen from the round room on the 3rd floor on the house.

Charles

2011

Stanford Memorial Church at Stanford University in Palo Alto

More photos here:

Near the base of the tower on the soth side

2017

A detail inside of the tower

Everything must come from the heart, must be lived.

Pina Pausch

 

Dragon, 19th century 

Crysral, bronze, and silver-gilt 

Japan, Meiji period (1868-1912)

The tower at night as seen from the front porch of the house

 

Leo

2011

Pen, ink, & paper collage by R H

1983

Bijan

2011

Light or luminosity is created by the way elements are juxtaposed. They become reflective and a radiance comes from putting different things together.

Merce Cunningham

In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.

Martha Graham

Eternity is not future or past. Eternity is a dimension of now.

Joseph Campbell