Friday, October 16, \9Q1/The Battaiion/Page 5
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By Susan C. Akin
Reporter
Somewhere in the middle of col-
ON: will meet; ; jections of carved wood sculptures,
^ re tropical plants, ties, pipes, an
cient Christian artifacts, African
edding aprons and masses of ar-
itecture students, Rodney Hill can
found.
This architecture professor dou
bles as a sculpture artist and one of
Texas’ most successful architects.
■ a peanut-butttB “People come to me for designing
tain and asculpturing commissions, so I
don’t have to go looking for them,”
Hill said. “Clients hear about me
through word of mouth.”
Hill also designed and created the
-foot-long carved walnut murals
nging in the MSC. They were
me for A&M’s centennial cele
bration in 1976.
One of his next projects will be to
turday andfa: continue these carved wood murals
tping Cenier H include the liberal arts, medicine
,, , u and education colleges,
i avea u J| Among his many different com-
iiuay at ,lie ^Ifeissions and professional undertak-
Bgs, Hill prizes his design work on
ION: will btifte State Fair of Texas, the Apparel
e Hillel BuildinjlMart in Dallas, Highland Park Meth-
H^Jist Church, the Garden Show in
Ktllas and numerous restaurants,
Buses, business offices, gazebos,
ave AutOcrosslilM 11 '' cellars and art pieces through-
■t the state and country.
■In addition to using his creative
talents, Hill manages to intrigue
most audiences with his own fas
cinating interests.
■“My rare tropical plant collection
is the hobby I escape to,” he said. “I
to The ife[tak|| ve one l ^ e t )etter rare tropical
workingrtm^ljecnhouses in this part of the
state.”
[Hill has plants from India, Japan,
rica, Mexico and other countries.
> collection includes an 18-year-
ponytail palm and a 15-foot tall
tus.
‘I also enjoy gourmet cooking,
ticularly making pastries,” he
Photo by Susan Akin
Rodney Hill, an architecture professor at A&M, looks at plants in his greenhouse.
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e’s a sculptor, a gourmet cook
has a tropical green thumb, but
hat does such a multi-talented per-
m do just for the fun of it?
e collects ties.
Men’s ties are almost the only
‘ thing that changes in men’s fashion,”
Wp; he said.
IjSome of the more unusual ties in
his collection include a wooden tie, a
bone-shaped tie, a silver-sequined
tie, a Texas flag tie and a clear plastic
tie filled with unusual objects like
plastic toys and BBs.
■The ties are sure to attract a lot of
attention when Hill wears them. He
’was wearing the plastic gadget-filled
tie when he answered a delivery
man’s knock at the door. The deliv
ery man was inquisitive about the un
usual objects around Hill’s neck.
Just as men’s neckwear follows
changing trends, Hill sees his own
artwork changing.
"My work is getting a little more
non-objective,” he said. “It’s getting
alittle more abstract. But most of my
commissions have been toward the
realistic.”
Sitting in his living room filled
with unusual and interesting art
pieces of all colors and variety, Hill
described his beginnings in art.
“I was raised with art,” he said. “It
was just a normal part of my life. It
was something that I always did. My
jparents encouraged all forms of art
—painting, drawing and sculpting.
RfBoth of my parents were artists.
My father was an advertising artist.
He founded the advertising depart
ment at Texas Tech. And my
mother was a fine artist, a painter.”
Hill received his bachelor’s degree
in architecture from Texas Tech
University in 1962.
“Twenty percent of my under
graduate courses in architecture
were fine art courses,” Hill said.
“Add those to all the art experience I
had as a child and it gave me a good
background for my work.”
In 1969 Hill received his master
of architecture degree from the Uni
versity of California at Berkeley.
“I did a lot of welding sculpture at
Berkeley,” he said. “I essentially
worked my way through graduate
school selling sculpture. I did a 50-
piece welding sculpture for Macy’s
in New York and also showed a lot of
my art in several galleries.”
Hill has exhibited his artwork at
many galleries in the country such as
the Houston Museum of Fine Arts-
the MSC murals — because of their
close grains.
“Walnut and pecan are two excel
lent hardwoods to work with,” Hill
said. “Their close grains hold a lot of
detail that something with a wide
grain, like oak, couldn’t handle.”
Hill explained that the bulk of his
work is with wood, although he en
joys creating molded-bronze and
welded-metal sculptures as well.
“It depends so much on what I’m
commissioned for,” he said. “I can
do just about anything, but the cli
ents usually tell me what they want.”
Hill got his first commission after
his architecture agency included
sculpting wood stairs as part of his
job.
“I designed some art nouveau
stairs for a house in Highland Park,”
he said. “And since there weren’t
“I was raised with art. It was just a normal part of my
life. It was something that I always did. My parents en
couraged all forms of art — painting, drawing and
sculpting.
— Rodney Hill, AScM achitecture professor
ing, thenovertaS
ly winds atbmpl
the Dubose Gallery, Houston; the
Country Gallery, New York; the
University Museum of Fine Arts,
Berkeley; the Baker Gallery, Lub
bock; the Sutton, New Orleans; the
Igor Meade, San Francisco; and One
Main Place, Dallas.
He also has had exhibits at A&M
in the MSC Gallery and the Lang
ford Architecture Center Gallery.
Anyone can view Hill’s permanent
artwork on campus. He designed
and created a bronze and walnut
sculpture on the second floor of
Sterling C. Evans Library.
“Texas A&M commissioned me to
do that sculpture for a fund-raising
venture for the library,” Hill said.
People donate money to have their
name put on the sculpture and the
money goes toward buying the li
brary more books, he said.
The Lubbock native said he likes
to work with walnut and pecan wood
types — such as the ones he used for
any woodcarvers in Dallas, I ended
up carving them. That was my first
time to carve wood. Other architects
in Texas found out about that and
ever since it’s been one commission
after another. And generally ar
chitects commission me.”
Hill has had more than 70 individ
ual commissions, taking up about
three pages of his professional 12-
page resume.
“One of my latest commissions
was an eight-foot walnut mantle-
piece for a couple in Wyoming,” he
said.
Hill has also designed and created
a sculpture for the American Revo
lution Museum in Washington, D.C.,
an altar for the Highland Park
Methodist Church, an outdoor
sculpture for the Woodcreek subdi
vision, two metal doors for the Capi
tal National Bank and an earth-shel
tered house in Belton — to name
only a few of his projects.
A bronze sculpture he did for the
Pleasant Grove Independent School
District in Texarkana won him an
award in the Art in Public Places
competition. Other art honors he
has received include the Seven
Young Artists of Houston juried
show, the Houston Expojuried show
and the Annual Fund Raising Tour
with the Art League of Houston.
Hill also has received the Faculty
Distinguished Achievement Award,
Distinguished Student-Faculty Rela
tions and the Teacher Achievement
Award.
Hill said he enjoys designing and
teaching at A&M because of the flex
ibility the University gives him.
“They’re open here to individual
creativity,” he said. “The conserva
tive campus tends to promote the in
dividual. So conservatism here
doesn’t affect my artwork. I haven’t
found any stumbling blocks to cre
ativity or exploration.
“The methods I’m using in educa
tion here would be very difficult to
do at UT or Rice. The College of Ar
chitecture at A&M, next to Berkeley,
is probably one of the more liberal
schools of architecture in the world.”
Hill uses centering exercises to get
his students to think in a holistic
fashion, bringing out their individ
ual creativity. He says it is all to help
students feel good about themselves,
allowing them to control their cre
ativity better.
“Architecture is a blend of art, sci
ence, engineering and psychology,”
he said. “Lots of architecture schools
are tied to engineering schools. But
this school took on a whole new way
of teaching in 1969, allowing it to
combine fine art and psychology
with science and engineering.
“For my second-year class my stu
dents are putting some designs on a
T-shirt that they’ll wear for part of
their presentation. That helps them
think of art and architecture as be
ing one and the same.
When Hill compared students at
other schools he has visited with stu
dents at A&M, he said the students
here are more open, interested and
willing to learn.
“Teaching architecture at A&M is
one of my favorite things to do,” he
said.
Anonymous benefactor buys house for elderly woman
, becoming part™ DALLAS (AP) — An anonymous benefactor
nine will be Sltphib bought an elderly woman’s foreclosed home
so she could live there for the rest of her life was
lared by: Charlid "an angel from heaven,” she said.
^*1^flirt! Maude Ellis, who is widowed and crippled, has
I 1 '" nien 0 Sived in the old frame house for the past 36 years.
ut last month, a bank foreclosed on the home.
She found out about the help from the mys
terious donor earlier this week.
“He’s an angel from heaven,” Ellis, 78, said
Wednesday. “That’s what he is.”
When community members found out about
Ellis’ plight, a special fund was set up for her by
Dr. Donald Bernstein at the First Republic Bank
of Carrollton. —
Ellis said she first found out dbout a possible
benefactor Saturday, and then Bernstein called
Tuesday to tell her the deal was secure.
Bernstein says the benefactor is just an average
man who drives an old car.
“He and his family don’t live in a big, fancy
house,” he said. “They are just common folks
who have a wonderful heart.”
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In South Africa:
-The Majority is Black.
-The Minority is White.
-The Minority rules the
majority because of
silver and gold.
Demand Divestment
Today
How: March against Apartheid 8c for
divestment.
When: 5 p.m.-8 p.m. Friday October 16th,
1987
Where: Gather in front of College Station
City Hall or catch up along the
route to Rudder Tower.
Sponsored by: Students Against Apartheid
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707 South Texas Ave., Suite 101D
College Station, Texas 77840
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SIXTH ANNUAL
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