WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2014
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arts & features
HOROSCOPES
Because the stars
know things we don't.
Aries (March 21-April 19)
Today is a 7
Today is a /
Take on more responsibility for the next month, with Venus in Capricorn. Assume authority, and watch for career advances.
Romance blossoms for the next few days, although complications could arise. Issues at home draw attention from work.
Taurus (April 20-May 20)
Today is a 7
Your old skills impress a new crowd. Accept criticism, if it's right. Begin two-day period of home improvement. Practice a creative art form. It's easier to venture forth for the next month, with Venus in Capricorn.
Gemini (May 21-June 20)
Today is a 7
Get the word out over the next two days. Dig deep into a favorite subject, and share discoveries with like-minded friends. The next few weeks are good for saving money, with Venus in Capricorn.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Today is an 8
Today and tomorrow could get extra profitable. Don't get stopped by the past, or fear of failure. Reaffirm bonds and agreements. Partnership increases the scope of what you can accomplish over the next month, with Venus in Cooperation.
Capricorn.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)
Today is an 8
You're extra hot for the next two days. Be dependable. Liven up the party. There more work coming in the next few weeks with Venus in Capricorn - the kind you like.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
Today is a 7
Talk strategy. Envisioning and imagining come easier today and tomorrow. Draw your own maps. For the next month with Venus in Capricorn, love's easier to find.
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
Today is a 7
Your home is your love nest. You're more domestic this month, with Venus in Capricorn. Focus on home and family. Beautify your living space, in practical and useful ways. Your team comes to the rescue.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
Today is a 7
You especially love learning this month, with Venus in Capricorn. Study, research and writing come easier. You're even smarter than usual, and words just flow. Attend to career goals today and tomorrow. Friends compete for your attention.
your attention.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)
Today is a 7
Complications could arise with an action or purchase. Wait for better terms. Use today and tomorrow for long-range planning. The next month with Venus in Capricorn can get quite profitable.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)
Today is a 7
Work together to make joint financial choices today and tomorrow. Prioritize your future. For the next month with Venus in Capricorn, your luck improves greatly.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb.18) Today is a7
Stick to the routine and prosper. A partner's a big help today and tomorrow. Finish old jobs and enjoy peaceful introspection this next month with Venus in Capricorn.
Allow more time for daydreaming and fantasies. Guard secrets and nurture seeds with love and care.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
Today is an R
Today is an 8 Increase efficiency and self-discipline for great results. Keep to the rules. Provide great service today and tomorrow. You're especially popular for the next month with Venus in Capricorn. Group activities go well. Enjoy the public spotlight. Social activities benefit your career.
benefit your career.
Local resident works to raise disability awareness
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Lorraine Cannistra ballroom dances with her partner, Brandon. Cannistra, who has cerebral palsy, hopes to educate people about her disability through dancing. She hopes to dance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."
LAUREN METZLER
@MetzlerLauren
Accomplished is a mild way of describing Lorraine Cannistra, a Lawrence resident. She has a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling from Emporia State University, along with a plentiful list of other personal achievements. She also happens to have cerebral palsy.
Cannistra may live with a disability, but she has not let that stop her in any way. To date, she boasts several accomplishments such as qualifying for the 1986 Paralympics in the 400-meter dash; winning Ms. Wheelchair Kansas in 2007, which allowed her to tour Kansas speaking about disability issues; and getting published in five "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books.
Although she has done so much, the true passion of her life is disability awareness.
"Disability is a part of my life, in the same way that I have brown hair and freckles." Cannistra said. "For people to look at me and only see the disability, that gets under my skin. It gets under my skin that, in 2014, it's socially acceptable to treat me like a 2-year-old because I have a disability."
"I can pretty much say with conviction that my team of four people right now is the best team of caregivers that I've had in my 28 years of hiring caregivers," Cannistra said. "My caregivers now are so incredibly supportive. They do so much more than help me put on my socks. There's so much that I physically cannot do for myself. If I didn't have the team that I have I could not live the life that I live."
She is capable of many things, but she needs caregivers to help her with day-to-day tasks like cleaning and household maintenance. A team of four University students, Aspen Gordon, Chloe de la Pena, Burke Slocum and Dan Aul, currently handles these responsibilities.
Gordon was the first of the four hired by Cannistra. Gordon answered Cannistra's ad on Craigslist searching for caregivers and was hired shortly after. A couple of days after hiring Gordon, Cannistra's two other caregivers quit without notice. Gordon worked two shifts a day for a couple of weeks, without complaining, Cannistra said.
"It was really hard on both of us because I knew how hard she was working and I was looking for people, they just weren't coming so I felt really bad." Cannistra said.
After a week or two of being Cannistra's sole caregiver, Gordon joined in the search for more help and pulled together the current team from previous connections.
Gordon and de la Pena had worked at Walgreens together, she is Slocum's roommate and she recruited Aul after speaking at the beginning of an anatomy lecture.
"I'm not going to change the world by myself, but I can do my small part of shifting somebody's focus, or trying to, for the five minutes of my dance," Cannistra said.
One of Cannistra's hobbies is ballroom dancing with her partner, Brandon. Cannistra wants to use dancing to help change negative perceptions about disabilities.
In order to reach the most people, she had to think the largest audience imaginable to her. She came to one conclusion — "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."
"Disability is a part of my life, in the same way that I have brown hair and freckles. For people to look at me and only see the disability, that gets under my skin."
LORRAINE CANNISTRA Lawrence resident
"I've always liked her because she does so many good things for so many good people," Cannistra said. "I want to [dance on "Ellen"] because disability awareness is in my soul."
to help Cannistra in her mission to dance on the show, see her Facebook page, "Help Lorraine and Brandon dance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show," and her Thunderclap campaign at www.thunderclap.it called "Wheelchair Dancing on Ellen!"
It's definitely helped with holding myself accountable because I can't call in sick; she needs help getting up for the day and getting put to bed. And just life lessons, you see her go through the struggles every single day, but she still ends the day with, "Hey, I got through the day. It's OK." It's just really cool to see someone struggle, but still overcome so much in the same day. It's just really rewarding with that.
"I don't want there to be another 30 years before I am a mainstream part of society so I will talk about disability awareness and disability awareness issues until my dying breath," Cannistra said. "It's what I'm made of."
Kansan: What is the most rewarding part of working with Lorraine?
Chloe de la Pena, junior from Legaxa
de la Pena. The most challenging, obviously, is with struggles, comes frustration. It's a very personal job, so I know everything that she's going through and the fact of helping her through stuff like that is challenging, but it's
Kansan: What is the most challenging part?
Kansan: What will you take away from this position?
de la Pena. I want to go to nursing school and it's going to help look good on nursing school applications but it's just helping another person with so much I think will really help my perspective. It's just really nice to finally understand what people like that go through and it just makes you appreciate your life a lot better.
rewarding.
Aspen Gordon, senior from
Wichita
Kansan: What is the most rewarding part of working with Lorraine?
Bordon. The most rewarding part is just what I've learned about disability awareness. There's so much stuff I've learned through her about what's acceptable and what's not. You think that you're being really respectful, but if you can't see it through someone else's perspective, it's so hard to know.
Kansan: What is the most challenging part?
Gordon The most challenging part was just when I had to work by myself, but ever since she hired the whole team as a collective, it's been a lot easier, a lot better. I mean, there are some days when it's rough, we have 'problems when we're going out or whatever, but I just like working there.
Kansan: What will you take away from this position?
Bardon Basically, how to treat people more respectfully and looking at stuff from other people's perspectives and not just how I think it should be.
Dan Aul, senior from Lawrence
Kansan: What is the most rewarding part of working with Lorraine?
I would just say it's pretty cool to give her a sense of accomplishment, whatever it is we're doing. I'm just there to aid her in any way that I can. Her big thing is trying to feel good about what she can do instead of focusing on what she can't do and that's pretty inspiring.
Kansan: What is the most challenging part?
Ans It can definitely be a little difficult at times due to her physical limitations. Just simple tasks like getting her in the car and going out to eat somewhere or what have you. It's a pretty big process but you get used to it after a while. Kansan: What will you take this position?
Kansan: What will you take away from this position?
All She's really changed my perspective on people with disabilities. It doesn't mean that you're inferior; it's just a different perspective on life. It's been pretty cool just looking at people with disabilities and what they can do as opposed to just seeing their limitations and judging them based on that.
Edited by Kelsie Jennings
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Jill Shephard, owner of Ruff House Art, uses one of four vintage letterpresses in her new downtown store. The business sells stationery including greeting cards, wedding invitations and other crafted paper goods.
Alumna opens new stationery store downtown
HANNAH PIERANGELO
@HannahPier
Despite the dog logo and punny name, the new Ruff House Art business in Lawrence has nothing to do with dogs.
It's actually a stationery store that sells greeting cards, wedding invitations, gift-wraps, notebooks and other crafted paper goods. The shop opened Nov. 28 and is owned by 2004 University alumna Jill Shephard and her husband Brian. It houses four vintage letterpresses and a vintage paper cutter, which both date to the early 1900s and mid-century era.
Though Ruff House may be new to Massachusetts Street, it took over the space formally occupied by the hat store Lids at 729 Massachusetts Street, it's not exactly new to Lawrence. The Shephards have been working on running their business for almost six years. Now that the shop is open, Jill primarily works with production, pressing and design of the stationery. Brian manages the website and photography of products on top of his own business as a web developer. Brian also built all of the natural wood furnishings and organizers in the store.
"I never envisioned myself owning a stationery company," Shephard said. The 31-year-old majored in visual communications with an emphasis in graphic design and previously designed for a marketing firm in Denver. After being laid off in 2009, she decided to follow her dream.
"I always wanted to own my own business and be an entrepreneur, but the timing was never right," Shephard said. "It's scary to quit your job and go out there and do it." Shephard started by designing wedding invitations for friends and printing them on her inkjet printer at home. She said she decided to put some of her designs on Etsy, a site where customers can buy homemade products online.
"It exploded from there," Shephard said. "The orders rolled in, so I created a few more. I thought, this is way more fun than marketing work. So I said goodbye to marketing and proceeded with wedding invitations."
Now, Shephard said her products are sold in national chain stores such as West Elm, World Market and Nordstrom, as well as in boutiques across the country and in Australia and Canada.
Even with national outlets for her products, Shephard is striving to maintain a local focus in the stationery store She said she is currently it talks with the University licensing department with hopes of being able to use the layhawk and Kansas
logos on her stationery and graduation cards.
Shephard also hopes to host a few creative classes for the Lawrence residents and University students at the new location. She said she would like to teach a class about the letterpress and another that features a guest calligrapher to discuss the art of hand lettering, which Shephard said is a popular stationery trend at the moment.
Shephard began working with letterpresses in college after taking a class, but she said she only gained a basic knowledge of how it worked. When she ran into her first letterpress, a 1915 Chandler and Price, Shephard said it required a little more time to learn.
"It was pretty intimidating at first," she said. "It sat there until I could wrap my head around how to use it. The presses that we run are a little different than the ones at the school. And the presses are [about] 100 years old, so there's no user manual."
Shephard said she eventually got the hang of it and the shop now runs a total of four vintage presses as well as a vintage paper cutter.
"I feel like there's been a little resurgence of the letterpress, so people are really starting to appreciate the art," Shephard said. "They're probably more valuable than they were 20 years ago."
She said the cost of a letterpress ranges from $1,500 to $6,000 to buy the kind of the presses that Ruff House Art uses. Shephard said the varying price relies on the condition of the press. What makes the letterpress special is the look and feel of the finished product. Shephard said the letterpress creates an impression on the paper, which gives it a tactile feel.
"We have one greeting card that says 'I love you as big as the world,' " Shephard said. "That's something that my daughter always says to me, so we turned it into a greeting card."
Shephard said she likes to draw inspiration from her everyday life. Her designs are inspired by popular trends, colors and sayings, including favorites from her 4-year-old daughter.
Brennan Coleman, a junior from Dothan, Ala., visited the store Friday and said he thought the cards were distinctive.
"Some of the designs they had I had never seen anywhere else before," Coleman said. He said he doesn't usually buy stationery, but likes having a local store downtown as an alternative to buying greeting cards from larger chains such as Walmart.
"[With] cards, I prefer
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