University Daily Kansan, April 20, 1983
Page 9
Artist readies sports murals for center
By ROB KARWATH Staff Reporter
When the K.S. "Boots" Adams Alumni Center opens this summer, Wilt Chamberlain will be there. Jim Ryun, John Hadl and Al Oterer will also attend — all courtesy of John Martin.
In two weeks, Martin, a nationally known sports artist who works out of a studio in the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo., will have put the pieces together for a large murge that will hang in the All-American Room of the center.
The murals depict various generations of All-America KU athletes in action in eight sports. They will be displayed at the new building just north of campus.
THE MURALS REPRESENT more than a year of work for Martin, who is charging a reduced price to the University as his gift at an alumnus. The financing for the room and the murals came from former U.S. Sen. Harry Darby, a Kansas City, Kan. steel executive.
The largest of the acrylic-on-masonite paintings are the 8-by-5 football and basketball murals. The football painting shows Jayhawk stars such as Hadl, Gale Sayers and John Riggins in action on a background that includes Memorial Stadium, Campanile Hill and the backs of campus buildings along Memorial Drive.
Jo Jo White, Clyde Lovellette and Chamberlain are among the stars of the basketball mural, the background of which is the inside of Allen Field
Martin also has completed two of four 8- by 3-murals — one for baseball and one featuring All-Americans from various minor sports. Only the track mural and the field events mural are still in the works.
THE MASTERPIECE OF the collection, however, is the 5-by-3 fireplace mural depicting KU and four-time Olympic shot-put gold medalist Christina McRae to paint an Oderer is superimposed over a likeness of the ancient Greek discus thrower and, as in the other murals, the stars and stripes.
"The fireplace mural isn't just Ai Oerter," Martin said. "It's the image of the All-American athlete. AI Oerter is everybody's image of the truly Great All-American at KU, and that them is emphasized with the discuss
The year and two months that Martin has spent working on the murals represents more than just research. A lot of research was involved, too.
"I painted all the athletes from old photographs," the artist said. "So before I started I had to do some running, around to find the right photos."
MARTIN ESTIMATED that for each mural he spent between 10 and 15 hours poring through old photo files in the University archives, the sports information office, the offices of the Kansas City Star and Times and the Topeka Capital Journal, looking for the rightcafé of each athlete.
"The Oterer pose I got from an old negative I found in the archives," he said. "It's just a terrific shot of him swinging the discus."
Once the right poses were found.
Martin had to put the athletes together cohesively — first on paper, then on the masonite boards.
"That was the hardest part -- finding the proper design to make each mural work in the given space," he said.
"I had the freedom to do just about anything I wanted with this project. The hard part was setting up in my mind where the project was going and what it was supposed to represent. In fact, it was the All-America athletes."
THE CHOICE OF WHO would be in the murals was not Martin's. The Alumni Association gave him a list of selections after research and consultation with the sports information office, the Big Eight Conference and the National Collegiate Athletic Association
And, Martin said, he has left some extra room in each painting.
"I left a little room in each one just in case somebody comes along who's truly outstanding," he explained. "I'll just take the mural down, take it back to my studio and paint the new person in."
Grad student explores early Indian plant uses
Some people say the only remaining Indian contributions to American culture are the canoe and place names. Others say that most survival skills known to man were derived from Indians.
Dick Plumle, graduate student in the departments of botany and history, has found in his master's thesis work that he can grow lichen on plants how to cultivate plants as medicine.
"The Indians introduced a plant commonly called stinging nettle to white men," Plumlee said. "It's Vitamin C content helped cure sore throat." The Indians, their coughs with plants commonly baked on boneset and Indian root."
The hot leaves of another plant, called white man's foot by indians we were brought from Europe, we also used externally by blacks for bites and stings, he said.
HE ALSO SAID that medicine for infections came from cattail, cures for insomnia came from red cedar and mouthwash came from sumac.
In a talk at Snow Hall yesterday,
Plumlee told botany professors and graduate students that many plants in the central United States had retained their early medicinal uses.
Dandelion roots are still used in the Appalachia region to treat stomach, lung and liver disorders, while wild carrot leaves are still dried, smoked and used there to treat asthma and colds, he said.
some plants are still used by people who doctor themselves." Plumlee said. "Others ceased to be used when physicians learned how to use pure substances rather than the crude plant."
He also said that tonic from ginseng, heart medicine from fox-glove, malaria medicine from quinine, and peppermint the opium poppy plant were still used.
It's been hard to figure out who gave what and when," he said. "Many plants like the dandelion and the carrot were introduced to New England from Europe. The white men told the Indians about the plants, and then the Indians reintroduced them to other settlers on the plains."
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