Posted on 04/10/2002 8:56:59 AM PDT by jwalburg
For a quarter, the U.S. Mint has bought itself some ill will in Missouri.
Five designs Missouri submitted for consideration to grace the state quarter have been redrawn by a mint artist.
Radical changes to two of the designs have prompted protests by the artists who created them.
To them, the new designs aren't worth a cent, let alone a quarter.
"I was just like, `Wow,' they really changed it a lot," said Barton Burnell, an Independence resident
whose design featured an American Indian on horseback on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River and a pioneer's wagon far below him.
The redrawn design removes the river, places the Indian on a mound of earth, not a river bluff,
and enlarges the settler's wagon and adds a second wagon.
"I know they were going to change things," Burnell said, "But they kind of got away from the
whole feeling I was trying to do with it."
The redrawn designs may not be the final designs Missourians will vote on for their favorite
later this spring. The artists' protests, along with reaction to the new drawings
from advisory boards that review state quarter designs, may influence the final design.
Paul Jackson, a nationally known watercolorist in Columbia, was furious about the changes to his design,
which portrayed explorers Lewis and Clark paddling on the Missouri River with the Gateway Arch in the background.
Mint artist James Ferrell added other people to the canoe, made the bow of the craft extremely prominent,
changed the way the explorers held their paddles and eliminated the trees that created the illusion of the arch receding into the background.
And to compound the problem, the word "bicentennial" was misspelled as "bicenntenial" on the redrawn version.
Jackson had spelled it correctly.
Spokesman Michael White said the mint does not allow its artists to be interviewed.
Jackson accused the mint of not caring about the thoughts of Missouri and its artists.
"They've removed the natural beauty of Missouri," he fumed. "The arch is out of proportion. It isn't centered.
And it looks like the canoe has an outboard motor."
On March 21, the U.S. Mint presented Ferrell's drawings to the Commission on Fine Arts, a seven-member panel
appointed by the president that has reviewed each state's quarter designs.
Commission historian Sue Kohler said the panel liked the explorers-and-arch and Indian-and-pioneer designs
the best of the five that were submitted.
But the commission thought Ferrell's Indian-and-pioneer design might be controversial,
because the Indian's intentions are not clear.
Kohler said the commission was not aware that Burnell's original design included the Missouri River,
one wagon and not two, and that the wagon was so far away that the Indian and pioneers don't really seem to interact with one another.
Kohler said the explorers-and-arch design "graphically didn't come off because the canoe is coming out from under the arch. The combination didn't work."
The commission did not see Jackson's original drawing, in which the arch was more shaded and symbolic in the background,
rather than appearing to be something physical that the explorers were sailing through.
The commission gave the mint its thoughts on the designs, as did the Missouri
Quarter Advisory Board.
Nia Ray, chief of staff for Missouri first lady Lori Hauser Holden, said the advisory board questioned why the
Indian-and-pioneer design lacked a Missouri River and contained so many oxen and wagons.
The board also criticized the lack of clear detail in Ferrell's explorers-and-arch design, as well as its "clumsy" canoe.
When the board reviewed the mint's design, it did not compare them with the original designs on which Missourians
voted last year to pick their five favorites. Jackson's Lewis and Clark design won that contest.
Ray called the mint to convey Missouri's official feedback on the new designs.
White, the mint's spokesman, said the mint would take into account the advice of the Commission on Fine Arts and the governor's office.
"The designs could be modified," he said. "The emphasis is collaborative. We expect people to have strong opinions,
and we want to work with the state to make sure it gets the best design."
White said the mint made clear from the beginning that each state was to present "design concepts" to the mint,
which would be used as a starting point for the design of the new quarter.
The newly reworked designs next will go next to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. They then will be
returned to the state by May 28, Ray said, and Missourians will get to pick their final favorite.
Let's see. When the government gives some "artist" a grant, and the artist paints a picture of Christ in a vat of urine, that can't be changed because the "artist's vision" is paramount. But for an artist's historical interpretation of our country's past, who give's a rat's ass about "vision?"
Never mind Afghan women, we should make our politicians walk around in burkas -- burkas made of shag carpet...
Mark W.
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