February 7, 2008

The Art of the Vote

My polling place is an elementary school. The voting booths are set up in the art classroom and it is a wonderful place. There are many tools for making things there – paints and brushes, scissors, glue, string and paper – and the room is full of paintings and collage and fabric and papier-mache sculptures that children have made. The teacher has hung signs around with quotations about art, I suppose as a way of encouraging and inspiring the students. When I went to vote on Tuesday, this sign was hanging right outside the room:

A man paints with his brain
and not with his hands.
Michelangelo


It made me hope in that place of creativity and exploration that maybe people would come and vote with their brains and not just their hands. But I don’t know.

No comments: