Daily Lobo spotlight

John Sumrow

Junior

Fine arts

Daily Lobo: What's your job on campus?

John Sumrow: I'm a senior graphic designer.

DL: What do you do?

JS: All the billboards statewide. If they want a magazine, I design that - do the layout and a lot of photography.

DL: What do you like about your job?

JS: I love working on campus. It's centrally located. It's just a whole environment, a city unto itself. It's like a city inside Albuquerque, and there's everything you could want on campus.

DL: What's your favorite thing about campus?

JS: It's a top-10 arboretum, nationally. There's tons of trees and scenery. There's always something interesting going on - always something to do between Popejoy and lectures and interesting stuff to get into. There's always art. We've got like six or seven museums, and there's always something to go see.

DL: What do you think are the strangest activities or people on campus?

JS: There's always the classic - there's Don Schrader. The Krishna guy is a new one. He's been here the last couple years - nothing too outrageous. The student body - I think you can go a lot more outrageous than what we've been doing.

DL: Do you think the student body isn't living up to the weirdness of the city?

JS: Absolutely. I think they could go much further.

DL: What would you like to see them do?

JS: Well, like Berkeley and all those, they do random streaking marathons and all sorts of crap, and doing very controversial art installations. I hear nothing, like, controversial or anything going around.

DL: So you think what the campus lacks is nudity?

JS: Oh, no, no, no. Well, actually, yeah. I mean, you hear about Stanford and stuff and some of the big boys. They're doing, like, a naked sit-in - not like orgies or anything. They're doing, like, social nude parties, where you actually, once you take off your clothes, the only thing you talk about is politics and art and interesting things. I mean, you know, why aren't we doing magical stuff like that here?

DL: What would you major in if you weren't majoring in fine arts?

JS: Engineering.

DL: What do you want to do when you graduate?

JS: That's a good question. I'm on the 10-year plan. So, I got a career before I got an education.

DL: What's the best class you've taken?

JS: Painting II.

DL: What did you like about it?

JS: The teacher was insanely knowledgeable, and it was just really good. It let me kind of do what I wanted to do and stretch my legs and paint whatever. It was very nice. Actually, Zen Buddhism was also one of my faves. Professor (Richard) Hayes, anything he teaches is good - Zen Buddhism, all that.

DL: Is there a big Zen Buddhist constituency at UNM?

JS: Not so much. Well, not that I know of, but I mean, definitely there's two or three centers around here you can go - Zen centers. Actually, anything with Zen or sex in the title of the class, those fill up immediately. That's a good quote. Write that down.

DL: What sex classes have

you taken?

JS: None at all. That's a quote from Professor Hayes, I think. I'm not sure, but it's kind of a buzzword. I had taken Zen Buddhism, and the first thing out of his mouth, it was like, "Yeah, it seems like anything with Zen or sex in the title of the class fills up immediately."

DL: What do you think it would be like if they could combine those two?

JS: Utopia.

~Jeremy Hunt