CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, March 3, 1995
3A
Lawrence man on cutting edge of terrestrial art
Stan Herd's crop masterpieces grow and die, attract attention
By Brian Vanderven
Kansan staff writer
Using machetes and a tractor, Lawrence artist Stan Herd transforms mundane fields into massive works of elaborate crop art.
Stan Herd
"My work pays homage to people that work the land." he said.
Courtesy of Stan Herd
Herd, whose works are best viewed from an airplane, showed slides of his nine major projects to about 150 people in the Spencer Museum of Art auditorium yesterday afternoon. The presentation was sponsored by the Humanities program.
Stan Herd uses a variety of crops to create his art. In November, Herd created "Countryside" in Manhattan, N.Y.
In 1981, Herb began his crop art in southwestern Kansas with
a 160-acre portrait of a Native American called "Satanta." He is best known for his 20-acre scene of three Van Gogh-like flowers called "Sunflower Still Life." The work was near Eudora.
Herd said he liked that his work was temporary and that the land would be returned for other uses.
"The idea of putting Mt. Rushmore in the ground is not in my plans," he said.
In November, Herd took his skills to New York City. He created "Countryside," which depicts trees and rolling hills on an acre of land in west Manhattan owned by Donald Trump.
"The idea of going to New York was really kind of a dream," Herd said.
Working in New York allowed him to meet new and interesting people, including several homeless people who
"My work pays homage to people who work the land."
Stan Hord Lawrence artist
assisted him with the project, he said. Dozens of garden crops were used because the workers had requested crops that they could eventually eat.
"Soybeans, pumpkins, cantaloupes... We had it all," he said. Herd said the homeless people did have something in common with the executives he had met from the Donald Trump organization.
"They do anything they please," he said. "They're kings of their own world."
Herd also met graffiti artists who examined his work.
Steve Miller, Hutchinson junior, said he had been a Herd fan since he was in elementary school, when he saw photographs of
"Graffiti artists essentially do the same thing I am — plaster their works in the open and gain some attention."
"I like the idea of his working
with the earth," Miller said. "It's really respectable."
Angie Calton, Norman, Okla., junior, said she also liked his crop art.
"It's interesting that his work changes," she said. "It can grow and die."
"Sunflower Still Life," created in 1986 in Eudora, is one of Herd's best-known projects. Courtesy of Sand Herd
Re-reading of texts can be boring but is helpful
Different classes with the same books offer a different view
By Virginia Marghelm
Kansan staff writer
Shandra Dalke knows how to save studying time $\rightarrow$ take classes that use the same books.
Between a philosophy class,
Western Civilization and two English classes, Dalke, Garden City freshman, has had to re-read five books. The overlap can be frustrating, she said.
"It's just a repetition and another something that you could have read," she said.
But students reading Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" or Plato's "Republic" for the third time may not be wasting their time, professors and administrators say.
Robert Anderson, associate professor in French and Italian and lecturer in Western Civilization, said that reading the same material more than once had its advantages. If the repeated readings are presented correctly, they can enrich a
student's education, he said.
Anderson compared reading a book more than once to listening to a favorite song more than once. Each time you listen to the song, you can get pleasure out of it.
The experience should be similar for students, Anderson said. Students who read the same books in different classes have the opportunity to look at them from different angles, he said.
Anderson said that there were a number of books he had taught frequently, and despite reading them 30 times or more, he still learns from them.
"It's not duplication," he said.
he said.
James Muyskens, dean of liberal arts and sciences, agreed that looking at material from a different perspective could be valuable. For example, a student might examine the writings of Aristotle in a theater class, he said.
"It would be a rich curriculum to have that," he said.
Repeated readings are not necessarily bad, Muyskens said. The question, he said, was not whether the same books were taught in different classes, but whether the
classes examined the books from different angles.
Muyksens said that he once had a student complain that she had been required to read Descartes twice — once in math and once in philosophy. In a case such as that, when the material is examined in a completely different manner, it is not duplication, Muyksens said.
But if a student doesn't like the book to begin with, even one reading may be too many.
"It felt like a waste of time, but it was probably just because I didn't like the books," Dalke said.
CAMPUS BRIEFS
Trial date set in phone call harassment
Kansan staff report
A KU student charged with two counts of telephone harassment appeared in district court Monday for a trial date setting and has submitted a diversion agreement, according to court documents.
William Hambright, Grand Junction, Colo., freshman, had been charged with making harassing phone calls in December to two female KU students.
A trial date was set for March 29. Hambright said he entered a diversion agreement so the charges would not go on his permanent record. He expected the agreement to be approved within several days.
Amy Hamel, Hays freshman, was one of the students Hambright allegedly harassed.
She said his application for diversion did not bother her but that Hambright should be punished for the phone calls.
"In a way, it would be like he was getting away with it," she said.
Hamel said neither she nor Michelle Stepp, Overland Park sophomore, the other student who was allegedly harassed, had received subpoenas to appear in court.
If the prosecution decides not to accept Hambright's diversion agreement, Hamel still may be asked to appear in court.
Hambright's attorney, Shelley Bock, declined to comment.
COMPTON Addition faces doom in vote
Continued from Page 1A
would have finished higher in the primary if he had come out against the Simply Equal proposal before the election.
"It became a single-issue campaign," he said. "Candidates finished higher up based on their positions against Simply Equal."
City commission candidates Bonnie Augustine and Jo Barnes finished second and third, respectively. Both said they did not support the proposed change.
Andersen said she did not believe Compton's decision to call for a vote on the proposal would make it less of an issue in the campaign.
"I think someone is giving him bad advice," she said. "It will focus the campaign that much more on the issue. If two people who support the change are elected, the issue will almost certainly come up again."
Andersen said the commission would be acting unfairly to vote on the proposal after having agreed to wait until April.
Compton said he made his decision to come out against the proposal a few days before the primary but wanted to wait until after the primary to make the announcement.
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