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FINALS GUIDE
KANSAN.COM
Behind LFK: The acronym created by an alumna
ALEX ROBINSON/KANSAN
ALEX ROBINSON/KANSAN Leslie Kuluva stands in her printing studio next to poster prints she created. She prints shirts and merchandise for bands in Lawrence.
COURTNEY BIERMAN
@KansanNews
This appeared in the Kansan on Oct. 15 Local artist and University alumna Leslie Kuluva, known on social media as "Leslie Kay" has worked in various media throughout her career, but she is best known for her screen printing: LFK.
Although the meaning of acronym "LFK" can't be explicitly published in this paper, it's Lawrence's most beloved slang term. LFK shirts and stickers are found on campus and in the greater Lawrence area almost as often as University merchandise.
Kulva moved to Lawrence from Kansas City in 1999 to study art and design at the University, where she gradually developed her artistry. She was working toward a degree in textiles until she discovered printmaking and "just fell in love with it," she said.
Kuluva would steal away to the textiles department at night to make t-shirts for her friends. Much of her work was done in her living room where shed make prints on her coffee table and dry shirts on her couch.
She added: "Textiles [class] was upstairs. It was basically all female... [printmaking] was downstairs and all dudes, and they were all making, like, penis prints. And I was like 'I think I'm a printmaker!'"
"All the grad students kept telling me I was a printmaker, and I had no idea what that even meant," she said. "Finally I took a printmaking class and it was like the exact opposite."
Kulua created LFK when she unwittingly made the first LFK spray paint stencil in 2001.
The original LFK design was spurred by a road trip. Kuluva went on several road trips around the Midwest, usually traveling with friends to see a concert, and shed make a new spray paint stencil for every trip to
tag the destination. They usually said something like "Lawrence Pride" or "14th Street Pride." LFK was inspired by the reaction Kuluva got when she told people where she was from.
"I would travel and people would say 'Where are you from?' and I'd say 'I'm from Kansas' and theyd be like 'Oh... Kansas' and then I would say 'Lawrence, Kansas' and their face would change," she said. "Theyd be like 'Oh, Lawrence, Kansas! That place is really cool...it's just funny how Lawrence was viewed. So I made a [LFK] stencil."
The design took off. The first LFK shirts were made by Kuluva and a friend used the original stencil. When people wore them in other places, the shirts were recognized and Kuluva's name would come up.
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Graphic by Jake Kaufmann/KANSAN
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