6A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 2008
Jerry Wang/KANSA
Kami Brant, Des Moines, Iowa, senior, displays two of her paintings that will be auctioned to benefit the Kansas City Humane Society. Brant said her project was inspired by her roommate, who worked to prevent euthanasia at the shelters.
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A love of art and canines
CAMPUS
KU art student to donate paintings to Kansas City Humane Society
BY BRANDY ENTSMINGER
bentsminger@kansan.com
Fine Arts student Kami Brant,
Des Moines, Iowa, senior,
is donating six pet portraits to Art
Unleashed, an art auction benefiting
the Humane Society of Greater
Kansas City.
Robin Rowland, director of development at the Humane Society, said she expected Brant's work to be popular with the attendees.
Hartman said she encouraged Brant to use her love of animals in a service project because it would help to amplify the message of her work.
"I'm just so excited that this college student decided to get involved." Rowland said. "It says a lot about her personality and character."
"It seemed right that she could use her artwork as a tool that would link both her interests," Hartman said.
Brant became interested in donating her work for a good cause while taking Painting III with Tanya Hartman, associate professor of art.
Brant used six dogs from the Humane Society as models for her work and included dedications to them on the back of the portraits.
Brant said she chose the dogs because they seemed to stand out to her. The only dog she painted with a collar was her roommate's beagle because she said she wanted to show he had found a home.
She also used her roommate's adopted beagle as a model for one of the paintings.
She said she planned to spend about 30 minutes getting to know
each dog before painting, but ended up spending closer to five hours.
Eachportrait took her 12 to 15 hours to finish. She said she planned to donate 10 paintings, but
"The most rewarding is knowing I helped raise money for each dog that I spent time with," Brant said.
Rowland said the Humans
Rowland said a group of Hallmark artists put together the first Art Unleashed auction in 1997. Since then, about half of the donated work has come from local and regional artists.
"I'm just so excited that this college student decided to get involved. It says a lot about her personality and character."
ROBIN ROWLAND Kansas City Humane Society
changed the number to six after realizing how long each one was going to take.
Brant said she would like to complete more portraits and possibly donate art projects from other classes next year.
The Humane Society is a nokill shelter and Rowland said the money raised at the auction would be used for food, housing and medical costs for the 140 animals living there.
Society expected to have 800 attendees at the auction and hoped to raise $55,000. Last year the auction featured about 250 pieces from 150 artists and raised $50,000.
said Brant was the first student from the University of Kansas who donated artwork for the event.
Rowland
"Hopefully she will inspire some other KU art students to get involved next year," Rowland said.
The auction will take place from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Aug. 22 at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Mo.
CAMPUS
Edited by Brieun Scott
The elusive student voter
Board works with campus groups to encourage student voting
BY HALEY JONES
hjones@kansan.com
tions to educate students on voter registration this fall.
The KU Student Legislative Awareness Board, or SLAB, is partnering with other campus organiza-
Wescoe Beach, at Mrs. E's Dining Hall and at various Panhellenic events with materials available for students to register to vote.
Michael Gray, SLAB legislative director and Buhler, junior, said volunteers would be in the Kansas Union, on
"We want to hit the most diverse amount of people we can and follow up on people who register," Gray
"We want to hit the most diverse amount of people we can and follow up on people who register"
said.
RYAN LAWLER SLAB legislative director
Ryan Lawler, Bolingbrook, Ill., senior and vice president of SLAB, said volunteers registered 500 to 600 voters for the primary election. He said he had
"We feel there is even more interest this year and we believe we can also benefit as an organization and reach out to more students," Lawyer said.
high expectations for the number of voters SLAB could register this fall since the presidential election was this November.
Gray said SLAB received an outstanding response from organizations that wanted to participate in the outreach efforts. SLAB has secured interest from various Greek organizations, Students for Barack Obama, Students for Dennis Moore, Students for Slattery, College Democrats of Kansas and Young Democrats of Kansas. Gray said SLAB contacted College Republicans but hadn't heard back from them yet.
Haitong
"When SLAB wanted to do this in the past, it's been the same three or four motivated people and you can't do eight weeks of voter registration with that," Gray said. "With these organizations, we can be out there as much as we want."
Lawler said SLAB planned to send two e-mails to the entire student body this fall informing them of when and where students could register to vote.
SLAB is also partnering with the Dole Student Advisory Board to register voters during Hawk Week, Aug. 17 to Aug.23.
Tom Cox, Shawnee graduate student and student assistant at the Dole Institute of Politics, said part of the reason the student advisory board wanted to focus on educating students about voting was because it was the most fundamental and important way people could be active in politics.
"It's the most valuable way for them to invest their time," Cox said.
Gray said the small number of young people who voted was what motivated him to prompt more students to register. He said when a specific constituency didn't vote, politicians didn't have to worry about that group's concerns as much.
"Until people get out and vote, we wont see our benefits increased like financial aid," Gray said. "We will be the ones politicians always cut from."
Gray said he hoped registering students to vote would encourage them to go to the polls and change the trend.
"Hopefully on the KU campus we can do our part and local politicians will see our efforts and change accordingly," Gray said.
—Edited by Adam Mowder