Mural worries KSU students
(Editor's note: While KU students have been pondering the weighty proposition of a moratorium in protest of the Vietnam war next week, students at the Kansas State University of Agriculture and Applied Science have been worrying about football, and, of all things, a 35-foot-high magenta and pink mural which appeared over the summer on the side of a campus building. One student said it looked like a pink nude, another said he saw giant giraffes. Sort of made us wonder what they teach those aggies to grow.)
By KENNY CUMMINS Kansan Staff Writer
MANHATTAN—A 74 foot by 35 foot psychedelic mural, which appeared on the side of a campus building over the summer, has become the center of the most heated controversy of the year here.
Charles Thies, the artist, a high school and junior college art teacher, said the mural is "nonobjective," that is, not intended to represent anything.
The mural, decorating what used to be a sand-colored windowless wall on the north side of Kansas State University's Waters Hall, is the product of an "Art in Situation" workshop sponsored by the University and the Ford Foundation.
Many K-State students think they see something in the mural, and what they see, they don't like.
One K-State coed said she saw a pink nude in the mural. Another student said he saw giant giraffes.
"It used to be reassuring to be walking across campus in the morning and look over and see old Waters Hall," one veterinary student remarked. "Now they've got that ugly thing up there."
The "ugly thing" is a collection of bright, vertical splashes of deep violet, orange, pink, brown and magenta that appear above the treetops, dominating the colorless landscape.
Two agriculture students began circulating a petition earlier this semester calling for removal or replacement of the mural.
"As agriculture students, we feel that an illustration on any agriculture school building should represent an agricultural meaning or orientation. The present illustration fails to reveal an agricultural concept" the petition stated.
The organizers of the petition,
Kelvin R. Boyer, Formosa, Kans,
senior, and James Phillips, Valley
Falls, hoped to get 600 signatures
to submit to the University.
"I'm just a dumb plowboy from the farm and I've always been close to nature." Boyer said. "Nature is beautiful."
The heated battle has been
10 KANSAN Oct. 7 1969
Almost the only person not embroiled in the dispute is the artist. Thies, who is currently teaching near St. Louis, said he had expected the dispute. "I think what they probably want is to see cattle up there grazing on the roof," he said.
The dispute continues, with no foreseeable result. K-State officials have remained silent on the matter.
"I hope it stays," one coed said. "It shows there is something at this university besides the agriculture students."
fought primarily in the pages of the Kansas State Collegian, the campus newspaper. Name calling and mud-slinging have been prevalent.
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TURIN, italy (UPI)—When two cars collided at an intersection, their drivers leaped out, began arguing and squared off to fight.
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Bystanders separated them and suggested they exchange insurance information.
The men looked at each others documents, then fell into an embrace. They were brothers separated during World War II who had not seen each other for 28 years.
Undergrad directs 'Summer Tree' Photo by Halina Paw
The cast of "Summer Tree," an anti-war play, rehearses lines while Steve Reed (seated), Wichita senior and play director, observes the action. The play will be presented Oct. 16-18 in Swarthout Recital Hall. Reed is the first undergraduate to direct a play at the University.
Art educators discuss new concepts
Educators from around the nation met with Kansas art teachers at the Symposium on Curriculum Development in Art at KU Saturday in the Kansas Union Forum Room.
Topics discussed were new
ideas in art teaching and the relationship art should have to the sciences, the whole school and the community.
The relevance of art education to society was another important consideration for those attending
the symposium. According to Margaret Bingham, director of a "learning dimensions" program in the Philadelphia public schools, art education should make students sensitive to their environment.
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