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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCT. 15, 2015 | VOLUME 130 ISSUE 15
NEWS ROUNDUP >> YOU NEED TO KNOW
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ASSISTANT COACH RITCHIE PRICE is strengthening Kansas baseball by recruiting with a personal, hands-on approach, and it's paying off. Sports >> PAGE 14
THE POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT is struggling to find enough faculty to teach electives. News >> PAGE 3
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DONNING (FAKE) BLOOD FOR A CAUSE.The ninth annual Lawrence Zombie Walk is Thursday. See how one zombie fan prepares to scare. Arts & Culture >> 5
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DID YOU MISS LATE NIGHT IN THE PHOG? Check out our gallery of the best moments from the $10,000 shot to the skits. >> Kansan.com/ sports
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CALL TO PRAYER Jameel Syed came to the Islamic Society of Lawrence to give the call to prayer and to talk about his historic journey. >> Kansan. com/news
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Artist Leslie Kuluva stands in her printing studio next to poster prints she created. She prints shirts and merchandise for many bands in Lawrence.
Behind LFK: The acronym created by local printmaker and University alumna
COURTNEY BIERMAN
@KansanNews
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.
Kuluva 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 she'd make prints on her coffee table and dry shirts on her couch.
"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.
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!'"
"I would travel and people would say 'Where are you from?' and I'd say "I'm from Kansas' and they'd be like 'Oh... Kansas' and then I would say 'Lawrence, Kansas' and their face would change," she said. "They'd 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 Kulva and a friend using the original stencil. When people wore them in other places, the shirts were recognized and Kuluva's name would come up.
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.
Kulua created LFK when she unwittingly made the first LFK spray paint stencil in 2001.
"Here at ACME we try to definitely tell people "That's actually a local artist's design," Conroy said. "If you want [Kuluva's] design you have to go [to a different store]."
It wasn't long before the design started to be copied. As LFK increased in popularity, Kuluva began to see boot-legged merchandise around the city. Clothing store ACME in downtown Lawrence is one of the most popular places to buy LFK shirts and stickers. ACME's LFK merchandise is sold without Kuluva's involvement, although the design is different than the original according to assistant manager Katlyn Conroy.
"People would meet each other in other states because of it, because one of them would be wearing the shirt and there's only one place you can get it," she said. "So theyd have this weird six degrees of separation thing."
Kuluva works with art gallery Wonder Fair and retail store Third Planet, but other business that sell LFK merchandise are doing so without her permission, though she admits that the "ripping off" of LFK is likely due to ignorance rather
"They don't know where it came from," she said.
than intent to steal.
came from, she said.
Last year Kuluva had LFK trademarked, but she isn't planning on taking legal action.
"At least I feel like I have a little bit of power if I want to use it," she said. "I don't know yet. I don't want to be a brat about it, but if you're making t-shirts or stickers with it, that's kind of my livelihood...I would rather be the place you can buy the merch because I came up with it. I like seeing it around besides that."
Today Kuluva owns and operates print shop LFK Press in East Lawrence with fellow artist Jeff Eaton. The shop allows Kuluva to do "a little bit of everything." She's able to continue creating original material while also filling orders for local bands and businesses. Warner Brothers Music is one of her biggest clients, and she was recently hired to create merchandise for country musician Dwight Yoakam. She also books bands for the Replay Lounge.
The Bourgeois Pig is also currently displaying some of Kuluwa's work in an show she titled "Lawrence Feral Kansas," a play on LFK, for the rest of the month. It was inspired about all the things she loves about
her town and what makes it "wild:" sunflower fields, camping, feral cats and lakes.
"I really love it here," Kuluya said. "It does feel smaller and smaller all the time because I've been here for so long, and as I'm getting older I'm like 'I know everybody!', but I don't know everybody. I still meet new people."
Although Lawrence is her "home base," Kuluva says she has a hard time staying motivated in a small community.
"I sometimes wonder if the big city thing might be a little motivating because there's a lot more competition and your rent's a lot higher, so you really have to kind of kick ass," she said. "Whereas in a town like this, it's really easy to be lazy, and I have a constant struggle to self-motivate."
She said she works to maintain her passion and keep her focus.
"You've got to make your own deadlines and pretend like you're still in school a little bit," she said. "There are a lot of talented people in this town that probably have the potential to be kicking a little more ass, and I don't want that to happen to me. So I really just try to keep busy."
— Edited by Maddy Mikinski
In an effort to combat microaggression at KU, campus departments team up to create a video
KATHERINE HARTLEY
@KansanNews
As an African American student on campus, Ebony Onianwa, a junior from Wichita, remembers being in chemistry lab and having her comments dismissed because of her race.
"It affected me a lot more when I was a freshman and a sophomore," she said. "I remember in my chemistry lab, I knew what was going on, but they wouldn't listen to it. It was like, 'Oh, she doesn't know anything about science.' It was so frustrating, and I still remember that and it just makes me so angry."
For Onianwa and other minority students on campus dealing with everyday slights or unintended discrimination is so frequent and damaging that the University's Office of Diversity and Equity and others are working to call attention to the problem, known as microaggression.
The Office of Diversity and Equity has joined up with the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access to create a video with student actors to sensitize students and others on campus to the problem.
"We want to make sure it is something that is good, but we also want it to be something where the University and people are having really good, constructive conversations
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and not just saying, 'Oh, that's just a microaggression video,' but asking, 'How do we help?' said Nate Thomas, vice provost for diversity and equity.
The two offices created the video with the help of the theater department's Interactive Theatre Troupe, a group of five students that uses interactive performances and improvisational theater to help diverse groups deal with challenging issues they face on this campus.
In the past, the troupe has focused on topics such as the
"Our main goal is to point out when things are messed up that we see on campus that we see in the media and in the world, and to make people think about it that haven't thought about it before," said
"Obviously when you bring together hundreds among thousands of students from all kinds of varying backgrounds and different levels of understanding as far as sensitivity toward other peoples' lifestyles, you're going to get negative experiences," Smith said. "Especially as someone belonging to a marginalized group."
Diadra Smith, a senior from New Jersey and member of the troupe. "If we have to do these performances for people to start talking, then that's what we're going to do."
Smith said she has also experienced forms of microaggression.
Jane McQueeny, the executive director of IOA, said the troupe's interactive performances provide a good vehicle for students to have peer-onpeer interactions on the topic of microaggression.
"We are trying to open up opportunities for the whole campus to be able to have common discourse that they can use to talk about these topics and address them as they come into our everyday campus lives," said the troupe's director, Nicole Hodges Persley.
shooting of Trayvon Martin, dating violence among both straight and gay couples, and sexual assault.
SEE VIDEO PAGE 2
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