“The Arts plate was designed by renowned California artist Wayne Thiebaud in 1994, and its sales currently account for two-thirds of the states public arts funding. Drivers use the new plate to replace their regular plate. Like all specialty plates, the California Arts Council plate has an extra fee, which directly supports the Arts Council.”

Even so, there is an aspect of Nevada’s plate that still works with my thesis that we’re complete aesthetic illiterates: we can only safely choose a child to design public art because at bottom, a child created it. Children are incapable of competence*, much less controversy, so we know that whatever a kid does will be “safe.” Safe, as in, un-criticizable because even if you hate the artwork, how are you going to criticize a child?

What bothers me about this use of children’s art is that, first, it reinforces the notion that art is playtime, a pursuit suitable for children only. Art is work. Most artists are thoughtful, dedicated people who work as hard at creativity as anyone else does at whatever they do. This plate says that artists and children are roughly equivalent.

And second, I detest the idea of all those other children “losing” in an artwork competition. One kid won – great. All the other ones lost. And chances are they’ve now stopped working at doing art.

So even though I kinda like the plate, I kinda hate it, too.

* You can’t sue children.

Actually… the Nevada Arts plate all in crayon ….”This is the only special plate designed by a child, Nevada 5th grader Beth Finta. Beth was a student at Harvey Dondero Elementary School in Las Vegas when she designed this colorful plate of Nevada scenery. Beth’s design was chosen from over 800 entries representing 11 Nevada counties to depict the richness of art we enjoy in Nevada.”

But thank you for this info and thoughts as I am researching this stuff!

Although in Texas we are quite luck for our personalized plates industry… I’m anxiously awaiting the day when I say fuck it and pay for one of these gems!

http://myplates.com/LuxurySeries/PLPC301