University Daily Kansan, February 28, 1985
ET CETERA
Page 6
Dan Fleming, an employee of Art&Sign Graphics Corp., 619 Vermont St., letters a cloth banner for a client.
Sign company paints the town
By PEGGY HELSEL Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
It's refreshing to hear success stories about people who have taken their academic degrees and made it in the mean streets of the real world.
Bob Treanor, 1316 Raintree Place, wrote such a story for himself. He's taken a little one-man sign shop and turned it into a thriving business. And he's willing to lend a hand to students who would like to do the same.
A YEAR LATER, The Art and Sign Shop, as it was then called, was ready to expand. Treanor relocated his growing graphics business to a small shop on Massachusetts Street. He hired a sign fabricator, and his friend, Rebecca, Rebecca, helped with the yoekering
By 1974, business was booming and Treador again picked up and moved to his
Treanor is the owner of Art&Sign Graphics Corp., 619 Vermont St. Art&Sign does just what the name implies. It makes the signs people see everyday, everywhere. The signs are on buses and buildings and just about anything else on which something can be printed.
Treanor knew what he wanted to do with his life long before he graduated from the University of Kansas in 1970, with a bachelor's degree in fine arts. He said he didn't ever bother other students where he lived, even if he instead to be his own boss. "I was a kid I had in my mind that I
THE BUSINESS EMPLOYES 27 people and serves the Lawrence, Topeka and Kansas city areas. It's not quite Madison Avenue, but it spins the humble origins back in the early 1970s.
"Since I was a kid I had in my mind that I wanted to free-lance," he said.
Treanor started working in his home immediately after graduation. He had drummed up a few customers while still in business and moved quickly into the business world.
present location. But disaster struck in 1975 when a fire destroyed part of the building.
"I spent several weeks agonizing over whether or not to cash the whole thing in," Treanor said. "I decided to come back and get stronger and stronger than before. I'm glad I did."
Art&Sign's walls are dabbed with every color of paint imaginable. In a glass-walled room a designer hunches over his sketches, while outside in the production area a man covers an 8-by-26-foot board with the sticky tape that acts as a basecoat. The gray surface will soon sport a reclining woman basking in the sun as motorists pass below her.
STACKED AROUND THE building are piles of lumber and sheet metal. In one room, old neon signs are stacked to the ceiling. A sign ins lies useless in a mass of twisting tubes.
Evidence of Art&Sign's success can be seen everywhere, such as in the form of Chocolate Unlimited Inc.'s smiling van. A woman clicking its lipsticks adorn the front of the vehicle.
John Bowen, owner of Chocolate Unlimited, 1601 W. 23rd St., said the van received comments all over the United States.
"People notice it," he said. "It's unusual.
I'm very vanny with it."
BEING NOTICED IS what Treanor's work is all about. A person sees about 1,600 advertising messages a day — from televised shows and walking down the street, Treanor said
"That takes a lot of doing anymore," he said. "People are more design-oriented. Advertisers want their art to stand out."
Treanor's clients pay for an image that will be remembered.
"The clearer and sharper the image, the
more said." The mind will skim past it
if it's not.
Treanor has achieved his success with a lot of help, much of it from fellow KU graduates. His sales manager, designer, artists and secretaries hail from KU.
Treanor said that KU art students today were better trained to enter the field than they were in his day. The area in which their education falls them is the business aspect of art.
"THE ONLY DRAWBACK they have is the business of art." Treanor said. "They never had to take bookkeeping or foreign language."
He hopes to help art students someday by teaching a seminar on business in the art field. He said students need to know more resources, portfolios and basic business skills.
"It itakes a stronger business mind than we are coming out of the art schools today," he said.
Another problem facing graduating students is the lack of experience required to land a first job, he said. Treanor said that he didn't like to hire people who hadn't had any previous experience, but businesses such as his are logical places for people to start out.
"IT'S A VICIOUS circle." he said
Treanor said that part-time jobs and internships could provide the necessary experience. He plans to start an internship program sometime within the next two years. He also hopes to set up a small advertising agency.
"The ad agency would be run by professionals but with a work force of students," he said. "It can provide the community with strong, creative and affordable advertising."
Art&Sign's future looks secure. Treanor again is planning to expand his business space and move his office next door to its present location.
Grads to return for recital
Through it all, Treanor survived the
pain of the stutter that faces a
business of Art&Art's nature.
"The business community, locally and nationally, has never accepted the value of a good design, how it is good for their business," he said. "That's hindered the art business from the growth and acceptance such as that in real estate or law."
Bv SHELLE LEWIS
Staff Reporter
Two professional musicians, who were both in the University Symphony Orchestra while KU undergraduates, by happenstance and by chance, City when they were working on a recital.
One was hired to write a composition and the other to perform. Eight years later, that reunion has led to the combination of their talents at their alma mater.
Bryant Hayes, clarinetist, and Roger Rundle, piano soloist and accompanist, will perform a free recital at 8 p.m. tomorrow in Swarthout Recital Hall at Murphy Hall as part of the department of music's Alumni Recital Series.
"IT IS AN exciting program." Rundle said in a telephone interview from New York. "It is exciting for students to realize there is life after KU."
Hayes said, "I haven't been back to KU for five or six years. I know a lot of faculty members from my undergraduate days. It will be nice to catch up with them."
The two men have performed several concerts and have toured the United States together. But tomorrow's concert will mark performance at the University of Kangas.
Hayes, 42, is the grandson of Donal M. Swarthout, dean of the School of Fine Arts for 27 years, and the son of Evelyn Swarthout Hayes, honorary chairman of the KU Swarthout Society, and Patrick Hayes, Washington D.C.
DONALD M. SWARTHOUT, who was an instructor for five years following his retirement as dean in 1950, developed the "Christmas Vespers" orchestra and the Christmas Vespers program.
Swarthot Recital Hall was named after him on Nov. 10, 1957
But despite his rich family musical history, Hayes didn't major in music at KU. Instead, he received his bachelor's degree in English in 1964. Hayes now is a teaued professor of English at Bernard M. Baruch College in New York
Bryant Hayes said he could remember that as a young boy he rode on his bike or strolled to see his grandfather at the music department, which was then located in Strong Hall.
"Teaching and music are both fun, but very different," he said.
HAYES SPENDS PART of each day practicing his instrument and considers playing the clarinet a second occupation — not just a hobby.
While at KU, Hayes was the first non-music major to be asked by the dean of fine arts to perform an honors recital. Hayes said he performed the recitals during his sophomore and senior years at the University.
"It is an accident that one of those jobs pays more money than the other right now," he said.
Last year Hayes performed his first European concert in the unique setting of Robert Louis Stevenson's historical home in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Hayes said the event was special not only because of its location, but because the home was privately owned and not open to the public.
Rundle, a 1966 KU graduate who received his master's degree in music from the University of Connecticut in 1970, and Hayes form works by Chopin, Ravek and Poulenc.
The duo will also play Phantasiusstuek, Op. 73, by Robert Schumann and "Toada in Memory of Heitor Villa-Lobos" by Jerry Sapieyevski.
Famous violinist to perform with symphony from Berlin
By RICK ZAPOROWSKI Staff Reporter
Violinist Shilo Mintz constantly scales the mountain of his musical career. He plays before crowds around the world — something he's been working toward since age 6 — and his career continues its crescendo.
Mintz will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday in Hoch Auditorium as the featured violin solist for the Radio Symphony Orchestra to play some songs will close the 1985 University Arts Festival.
Tickets may be purchased in the Murphy Hall box office. They cost $12 and $10 for the public and are half price for students. All seats are reserved.
Staff Reporter
MINTZ, 27, COMBINES concertes performances, solo recitals and chamber music concerts in his schedule of more than 100 concerts each year. And he has no notions of straying away from the day-to-day life of a concert musician.
"Right now my career is at a wonderful stage," he said in a telephone interview from his home in New York. "I like to make music. The most I make music, the happier I am."
Mintz was born in Moscow and moved to Israel with his parents when he was 2. His interest in music started at about age 6, when he began playing the piano and violin. He played both instruments for about two years before deciding to concentrate on the violin.
He began his musical training in Israel,
Mintz studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1973 at age 16 and made his European debuts at age 20. He has performed with many of the prominent symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad.
and at age 11 he debuled with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mintz plays violin in several different roles, he said, but he prefers to perform with a small group of people. He said that a small group, in contrast to a large orchestra, had to play precisely and had to find the perfect musical blend.
"I think chamber music is the most responsible way of making music," he said. "I like to think I am making chamber music, as well, when I play solo."
HE THEN CAME to the United States to study.
"YOU CANNOT HAVE everything as a performer," he said. "You can't show all the styles. Eventually, the music is going to be your own personality. I am mixing all the traditional styles into something I consider my own and original."
Miniz said that he was influenced by many different musicians and that it was difficult for him to find a way to express them.
Mintz said that when he had a break in his performing schedule, he liked to remove his hand.
"When I have time off, I like to do anything that has nothing to do with music," he said. "That way when I go back, I have a very strong desire to play."
Gay Boom-sad, aerobics instructor, leads her class in aitions of HPER 108, Aerobic Rhythms, which meets at routine. More than 500 students are enrolled in eight sec- Robinson Gymnastium.
Doug Ward/KANSAN
Students jump at chance to exercise
By RICK ZAPOROWSKI
Staff Reporter
About 50 students mingle on the basketball court of Robinson Gymnasium, waiting for class to begin. They casually sit on their floor, touching their toes or just relaxing.
The instructor gathers the students in a large circle and rhythmically yells out answers.
And, while many students sit idly in classrooms or eat lunch, energetic students in fitness programs, Aerobic Rhythms, minesweep training, stretching, hopping, dancing and sweeping.
After the warm-ups, Brady leads the class in several dance routines, which range from a finger-snapping Charleston sequence to an extended chorus line. The exercises, always performed with music, keep class members interested and make the exercises fun, while keeping their minds off their fatigue.
ELAINE BRADY, KU spirit squad coordinator, start the class with push-ups, arm circles and leg flexing exercises Mr. Man's "didn't say" to the "Mr. Telephone Man," says the paper.
Stephanie Learned, Lawrence graduate student, leads the aerobic rhythms section of the Sunrise Fitness program at Robinson Center. Learned's class of about 70, made up of KU students and Lawrence residents, contains only four men. Learned said that aerobics had never been too popular among men.
"I THINK MAYBE men have a little bit of a bias against it," she said. "Maybe they don't feel comfortable."
Over 500 students are enrolled in HPER 108, but women greatly outnumber men.
The aerobic rhythms classes aren't social attractions, according to the participants. The people wear mostly modest gray or navy blue sweats instead of flashy.
Doug Ward/KANSAN
People join the aerobics classes to keep
fit, learned said, and the group process is
further improved.
"It's a lot more fun to exercise with a group," she said. "And not only is it a
fashionable colors. Besides, there isn't much time for socializing during class—the students always are moving and are listening to their next instructions.
group activity, but it's not a competitive activity."
CAROL IVERSON, ARKANSAS City senior, said she had experienced a noticeable change in her physical condition since she began the class.
"I'm sure most girls do it to get in shape or lose weight," she said.
Learned said that the aerobic rhythms program provided participants with a variety of movements. Class members learned to stand and follow a long, slow duration of actions.
"The whole idea is not to make people feel as if they're in very bad shape," she said. "I like to start them off slowly so they can get into the progressing in the first two weeks or so."
Learned said the program was designed to increase the heart rates of participants and to sustain that level for a minimum of 30 minutes. She said that the target rate for a typical college-aged student was about 140 beats per minute, but that it varied according to an individual's age and weight.
"We try to teach people what the proper concepts are," she said, "so when they leave our class, they know what they're supposed to do."
Learned said that the class provided people with a starting point in their individual exercise programs and motivated them to continue exercising outside the class.
"It doesn't have to be aerobic dance the rest of their lives," she said. "They can change to other types of aerobics, such as swimming or cross-country skiing."