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arts & culture
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KANSAN.COM | MONDAY, APRIL 17, 2017
Aries (March 21-April 19) Put in extra backstage efforts so the show comes off without a hitch. Start early with promotions. Don't share unfinished work. Keep practicing.
Taurus
(April 20-May 20)
Plan your next exploration today and tomorrow.
Dream big. Get others involved. Together, you can get the funds. Follow rules and coordinate your
Gemini
(May 21-June 20) Take action for something you feel passionate about. You can find the funding. Discuss shared finances and goals.Make a sexy
Cancer
(June 21-July 22) Collaborate with your partner today and tomorrow. Refine plans. Add sexiness and excitement! More efficiency leads to more time and money. Discuss what you love.
Leo
(July 23-Aug. 22)
Invest mental and physical discipline to your work and health, especially through tomorrow. Feast
on the fruits of your harvest. Your actions are adding up.
Virgo 23-Sept.22)
Andrew Rosenthal/KANSAN Former student body president and graduate of the University of Missouri Payton Head speaks about his experience as a campus leader and activist during Into the Streets Week.
(Aug. 23-Sep. 22) You don't need to spend to have fun.Practice your games and arts today and tomorrow.Play with talented players.Teach each other new tricks.
Libra
(Sept. 23-Oct. 22) The next two days are good for making domestic changes. Beautify your space. Feather your nest and reward workers with a feast. Indulge a pas-
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
It's a time of intense study
Scorpio
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Cash flow increases over the next few days, despite temporary blockage
It's a time of intense study and research. You're especially brilliant today and tomorrow. Your credit rating's going up. Learn from somebody you love.
Keep in action, and fulfill promises rigorously including with the budget. Send invoices.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) You're in the spotlight over the next few days. Take charge with professional priorities. Rely on an experienced partner. Disciplined coordination allows confident moves.
Capricorn
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Organize your plans
through tomorrow. Consider where you've been and what's ahead. Archive; file and sort to clear space. Prepare for the next challenge.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) A team effort takes new ground over the next few days. Support with action, beyond inspiring words. Walk the talk. Pull together-
er. Soak in the love.
Activist and Mizzou student leader during 2015 protests speaks to KU on leading change
BRITTANIE SMITH
@brittens_smith
Payton Head, a recent graduate from the University of Missouri and the 2014 student body president, is now a globally-known activist. After being called a racial slur on Missouri's campus, not once, but twice, Head said he had a "responsibility to Mizzou" to speak up about the discrimination on campus and to begin a student-led movement.
Head spoke to the University on April 13 to kick off Into the Streets Week, a schedule of events by KU's Center for Community Outreach.
Into the Streets Week is an annual event dedicated to bettering the Lawrence community through service projects, advocacy and activism. Jordan Barkley, the director of Into the Streets Week, said that the CCO chose a speaker to bring awareness to issues that are happening on campus.
Head spoke about his role in changing the atmosphere at Missouri, and recounted the events leading up to the movement.
They won by a landslide.
He said that the first racial slur incident occurred when a truck full of men drove by and screamed racial slurs at him. This forced Head to ask himself how he could make the University of Missouri better. He decided to run for student body president in the fall of 2014, though he knew this would be a daunting task.
There had only been two black presidents elected since the student government was formed in 1911, he said, and never two black students running on the same ticket.
"It was a very tense time at the University because there was something going on just two hours away that our University was failing to acknowledge." Head said.
"It was following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri."
Head said that there was no statement issued following this event, and Head felt like it had been swept under the rug and ignored.
During the summer of 2015, as Head was walking on campus, the second incident occurred. Men screamed racial slurs at him from a passing car.
"There was something different about who I was now. I wasn't Payton Head, the snaggletoothed sophomore from Chicago, I was Payton Head the student body president." Head said.
"This wasn't a Mizzou issue. This was an America issue."
Head decided it was time to disrupt the status quo.
Head was so enraged he wrote a Facebook post about experiences personal to him and friends close to him. It went viral overnight with over 5,000 shares.
News stations and papers were reporting on this story, but Head was confused because no one had cared before.
"It was different because of the privilege I had. [The journalists] were here because I was the student body president," Head said.
Six days later, then-Chancellor Tim Wolfe was going to send out a letter addressing this issue, but delegated it to someone else, who sent it even further down the chain of command. The students were outraged at his silence and sparked the first protest of this newly born movement
at the University of Missouri.
At that point, the story went international and students from many other universities were standing with Head and Missouri as well. Their acts of solidarity reminded the nation that this issue wasn't exclusive to Missouri.
Ashley Hocking/KANSAN Alex Thierry, from O'Fallon, Missouri, is studying ceramics at the University. Thierry's thesis展
*Memories to Objects* was displayed at the White Schoolhouse in north Lavery, Kentucky.
"These student voices weren't being taken seriously; these issues of race and racism weren't being taken seriously," Head said. "Our voices are so much larger when we speak as
one."
Head stressed to the audience that "privilege is power, and power is responsibility." He said that people shouldn't feel guilty about having privilege, but instead use it to give others without the same privileges a voice.
Head said while he had some privilege from being student body president, but there are other ways to get involved in making a change on campus.
"Centers of Social Justice are a great place to
start, if they're on campus," Head said.
Head suggested students discuss these issues with peers, faculty and staff to help find a way forward.
He also urged students to find a place in existing campus organizations and resources already doing work, and to start something new if none are available.
- Edited by Paola Alor
Art in Focus: Graduate ceramics student builds a permanent memory of his grandparents
RACHEL GAYLOR
@raegay218
Some of the most precious things in life are memories, especially those involving our family. One ceramicist is turning his memories into art, making permanent memories of his grandparents.
O'Fallon, Missouri native Alex Thierry came to the University from Anacortes, Washington, where he taught high school from 2012-2014. Thierry attended Truman State University and there received a bachelor's degree in ceramics, a bachelor's degree in painting and a master's degree in education.
"I just really wanted to focus on my work," Thierry said. "With teaching high school, so much energy is put into your students and I didn't have a good studio set up there. I was really looking for a place to still work with students, but to focus more on my ceramic art."
Thierry's thesis art exhibition, "Memories to Objects," was inspired by his grandparents, who, he explained, hosted gatherings at their home. Now, due to declining health, those gatherings have become less frequent.
"Currently, I'm making sculptural furniture," Thierry said. "It's influenced by these memories that I have from my grandparents' home."
Matt Burke, an associate professor of visual art, has worked with Thierry on his recent exhibition.
"What Alex has landed on is the idea of family, not just in his life but in his
art," Burke said. "Because there was this rich collection of furniture in his family's home, he chose that as a vehicle to represent that connection. So the work he is doing is furniture, but it is really about his family."
The challenge with Thierry's exhibition was getting clay to accurately represent wood furniture.
"Ceramicists make things out of clay," Burke said. "Most of the time it's pottery. But Alex has decided to try and mimic woodworking. So, he's not
going to build furniture out of wood, he's going to build it out of clay. He's going to take all he knows about clay and manipulate it so it accurately tells this story about his family."
The conceptual aspect of the art was difficult, but so was the act of making it as well, Burke said.
"There were points where he only really had one chance to get it right," Burke said. "Particularly when you're trying to bend clay or make a dent in it and he did that on such a large scale
and it worked. It was quite amazing. He was able to rely on his technical know-how to put forward this thesis idea, which is being able to show people his family through his work."
Thierry said that his exhibition means so much to him because it is more than just pieces of art.
"I like to make anything where I feel that it is more than just the object," Thierry said. "I really like to work conceptually and working on different ideas that I have whether they are memories of my family or ideas where I can get other people to think about them."
Thierry's favorite part about working on the thesis exhibition is that it not only applies to him, but to anyone observing it as well.
"As much as this is about my family, it's about everyone's family as well," Thierry said. "You can relate to loss or you can relate to the decay of memories that happens to people as they get older. So, while it is about my family, hopefully, people can see their families in it as well."
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