Designed as a respite from stress and modern life, the Windhover Contemplative Center at Stanford opened its doors in October and is available for public visits every Tuesday at 10am.
The genesis of the center began almost 30 years ago with Nathan Oliveira, an internationally-known artist who taught at Stanford from 1964 to 1995. After seeing the pressures that students faced in a highly-competitive university environment, his dream was to provide a place for Stanford students, faculty and staff to come for personal and spiritual renewal.
The Center’s rammed earth construction (envisioned by Oliveira and designed by San Francisco firm Aidlin Darling) has filtered light and neutral tones to induce quiet thoughts as visitors explore the landscaped garden and granite labyrinth. In keeping with its mission to create contemplation and renewal, the Center discourages the use of cell phones, tablets, laptops and other electronic devices.
The Center features paintings from Oliveira’s Windhover series, which is based on inspiration from the raptors he observed near his studio in the hills above campus. The Windhover Center takes its name in from these paintings, which in turn refer to the common kestrel and a poem of the same name by the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.
As Oliveira said in 1999 interview, “I’d look up to the sky and we’d see these wonderful raptors – red-tailed hawks and how they’d detach from the earth, and I wanted to paint something about this wonderful sense of detachment that they had. The concept of these paintings was always very spiritual, very contemplative, the concept of wings as metaphors for the soaring of one’s mind suggests a sense of contemplation, and of spirit.”
photo of red-tailed hawk by Backyard Biology
Another painting by Oliveira
Oliveira, who lived locally, passed away in 2010 at the age of 81. In addition to being exhibited widely across the world, Oliveira was featured in 11 group exhibits and one solo exhibition at the Palo Alto Art Center. Through the generosity of the Oliveira family, the Center’s collection includes one of Nathan Oliveira’s bronze sculptures, called Universal Woman.
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