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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, February 28 1968
Violist constructs as well as plays
By Carla Rupp Kansan Staff Reporter
Karel Blaas, KU associate professor of stringed instruments, not only performs as a violist, but also makes violas in his spare time.
Blaas plays viola in the KU Little Symphony and also in the University String Quartet.
"It's rather rare," he said, "for a luthier—French for string instrument builder—to perform on strings as well as build them."
He has made 15 violas and three violins in the past 20 years. He studied two summers with a professional violin and viola maker in Rochester, N.Y.
Blaas said it takes approximately "400 labor-of-love hours" to complete an instrument.
He currently is making two violas.
"This year I'm having twins," he said, grinning impishly. "I'm using the same pattern for both instruments."
"I like woods," Blaas said. "I walk by a lumber yard like a cat going by a fishmarket."
His love of wood was evident as he showed off the grain on a partially finished spruce "belly" piece, which forms the top of the main portion of the instrument.
"The back and sides of the instrument are made of maple with that old-fashioned curly-look," he said.
Some of his wood comes from violin-making friends in the East, and other wood he gets from the Olympic Range Mountains in Washington and the Alps in Switzerland or the Carpathian Mountains in Czechoslovakia.
He hand-carves the instruments
Forms ready for election petitions
Candidates for All - Student Council (ASC) school representatives, class officers and living district representatives for the 1968-69 school year may pick up petitions today.
Independent and party petition forms are available in the Dean of Students office, 228 Strong Hall. In order to qualify for candidacy students must return these petitions to the same office before 5 p.m., March 11.
ASC school representatives positions are open for the college of liberal arts and sciences, the graduate school, and the schools of education, fine arts, business law, pharmacy and journalism.
The positions of president, vicepresident, secretary and treasurer are open for the senior, junior and sophomore classes.
Living district representative positions are available for the social fraternities, social sororities, large and small men's and women's halls, freshmen women's halls, cooperative houses and professional fraternities with houses, unmarried and married students in unorganized housing.
A $5 filing fee must be paid by all candidates at mandatory meetings at 7 p.m., March 13. Class officer candidates will meet in the Meadowlark Room, Kansas Union. Others filing for election will meet in the Cottonwood Room.
"If I was a professional instrument maker, I'd probably spend most of the time on repairs."
Elections will be held April 3 and 4, the Wednesday and Thursday before spring break.
and cuts decorative "fF" holes in them.
He calls viola-making a hobby.
Blas's workshop is in an '8' by 10' alcove off his bedroom.
Two of Blaas's violas placed second recently in competition at the Violin and Guitar Makers Association of Arizona meeting in Tempe.
"The word 'competition' sounds so harsh and knife-like. Actually, it was more of a 'beauty' contest . . . the beauty of tone and work-manship," Blaas said.
Like any beauty queen, the final touches come in the finish; here Mrs. Blaas enters the picture.
It is her job to make the varnishes; the process is more complicated than any gourmet cooking, she said. The ingredients must be carefully weighed. Chemicals are cooked in distilled water to produce rosin; a stew of other ingredients makes a paste.
Dye is added, and the paste is washed four times with distilled water. All the color stays in the roinate.
"It's like straining out all the seeds and pulp from jelly," Mrs. Blaas explained.
Dried rosinate produces granules which are ground into a fine powder; turpentine and linseed oil are mixed in to produce varnish.
"The fun comes in trying out the colors on the woods," the couple explained. They argue and try this combination and that of the basic yellow and red tones. Both dislike a "too orangy" color. They like the rich red-browns for the finished products.
"Neighbors are accustomed to seeing violas hanging in the sun on the front porch to dry." Blaas said.
The professor-string maker said the KU music faculty jokes that he won't let anyone sign up for viola unless the student plans to buy one of his instruments.
"This isn't true, of course, but several of them have requested a hand-made viola." he said.
He will take a Sabbatical leave next year to write a book on the famous violin makers of today—travelling through America, as well as Europe.
PORTSMOUTH. Va. — (UPI) — A Cuban ship cast off three would-be defectors eight miles off the Virginia coast Tuesday, then savagely rammed and opened fire on the small vessel before U.S. Coast Guard boats got clearance to intervene.
Defectors put adrift
The Cuban skipper claimed he picked up the three men, but witnesses to the incident doubted it.
"I went through a lot watching those three men in the water," said Master Chief P. W. Cavinis, skipper of the Cutter Point Brown, first of two Coast Guard vessels at the scene.
He said Coast Guardsmen were at battle stations behind deck guns but he did not want to create an international incident by firing without orders from higher up. He finally got the orders, he said, but not until the lifeboat had been rammed twice by the Cuban vessel, 26th of July.
"This happened in international waters," Cavinnis said.
"NEXT BEST THING TO A WOMAN'S FORM"—Blaas
Professor is shown gauging the front of a viola under construction in his home workshop.
University history delayed
The publication of a history of KU has been delayed two years because of the enormity of the project.
Clifford S. Griffin, professor of history, started research on a history of KU in 1600. The title for the book is "The University of Kansas: A History 1864-1964."
Although the University officially opened to students in 1866, it was chartered by the legislature
in 1864. Griffin's book will cover the history of the University from its chartering, rather than its opening.
Originally, the book was slated for publication in the spring of 1566, coinciding with the University centennial celebrations. "I felt I could get the book out by then," Griffin said. "However, the project involved more than I expected."
Language lab useful to Sigma Nu's
Sigma Nu members have their own language lab equipped with 157 tapes in French, Spanish and Russian.
Dave Hill, Leawood junior and president of Sigma Nu, said alumni of the fraternity heard of labs on other campuses and suggested the labs be included in an addition built last summer.
Ermal E. Gerringer, director of KU's language lab, and Mrs. Paul Larson, head of the Bureau of Vuala Instruction at KU, supervised the setting up of the lab. Gerringer obtained tapes for Sigma Nu. They cost $400; the four booths, tape recorders and earphones cost $1,000.
Telephones in the booths will enable users to dial the language lab in the new humanities building to hear lessons.
Hill said instructors accept a note from him as proof that a student has used the lab.
There's a sound going around with a message!
Listen for
Listen for Jerry Dyke's new recording Brother, Where Are You?
Ask for it at your favorite record shop!
CLASSICAL FILM SERIES
AN EVENING WITH CHARLIE CHAPLIN (U.S.A. 1914-17)
The master of silent screen comedy as an escaped convict, erring husband, bungling shopkeeper's assistant, inept baker's helper & a drunk trying to put himself to bed.
The Pawn Shop Dough and Dynamite The Adventurer His Trysting Place One A.M.
7:00 & 9:00 p.m. Wednesday—Dyche Aud.
Single Admission 60c Season Ticket $5.00