The Art the Vote effort in Missouri will be slowly and steadily become more public over the coming weeks, as part of an effort to raise awareness on the importance of registering to vote, while incorporating an artistic touch.

The effort began its public life in late May, when the first piece in the series of eight, politically-inspired billboards was shown. That event, at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, offered up a piece by audacious woodcut artist Tom Huck, who used an octopus with gas nozzle-like tentacles to make a statement about the influence of big oil on American society.

Organizers of the Art the Vote effort – funded by roughly $140,000 in donations – hope that works like his will influence casual voters into registration for the Presidential elections. In Missouri, that’s an October 8 deadline for the November 4 race.

When naming the spots where people will spot the billboards, organizer Sue McCollum notes the population centers of “Columbia, Kansas City and St. Louis. People will see them driving down the highway, on their way across the state. We’ll have public unveilings around September 1st and will have them all up by September 5th and they’ll be up for two months, many of them with public events. At each event, we’ll have voter registrations. At some of them, the artist will be present.”

The date of September 5th will be a target point for the organizers, as they’ll have what they’re calling Purple Friday that day, with a series of unveilings and voter reg. drives in St. Louis, KC and Columbia. On October 7th, ATV will host Midnight Madness voter drives, with round-the-clock efforts to get people registered on time for the election.

McCollum suggests it’s a new concept, without other templates to work from

“This is the first time it’s been done,” she says. “A couple of people wanted to get artists involved in the process. And the artists wanted to get involved. Billboards can serve as a perfect, public canvas for these works. We want this artwork to direct people on the importance of voting in November.”

Her feeling is the project – underwritten by the umbrella organization The Missouri Billboard Project, a non-partisan political organization – will especially serve to motivate “young voters, those who are part of the artistic community.”

In fact, in the first piece published about the effort, at the St. Louis Beacon (linked below), writer Robert Duffy noted that, “(Secretary of State Robin) Carnahan accepted the registration of Caroline Katzman of Ladue, a junior at John Burroughs School. Katzman, in addition to claiming her franchise, gained the distinction of being the first Art the Vote registrant. At 17, Katzman is eligible to register because she turns 18 in August, Carnahan said.”

Eight artists are being selected for the project; seven of them, all nationally-recognized, were recruited by organizers, or they expressed interest to those organizers. The eighth is going to be decided by jury after Internet submissions end at midnight on July 7.

The full artist list includes: Huck (St. Louis), May Tveit and Peregrine Honig (Kansas City), along with non-Missouri artists Mark Newport, Annette Lemieux, Willie Cole and Martha Rosler, along with the online winner.

To date, the Art the Vote website has been relatively modest (www.artthevote.com), but the site should become more populated with content over the next week, McCollum says.
 
For more information by other press sources, you can read about Art the Vote at:

The St. Louis Beacon: http://www.stlbeacon.org/arts_life/visual_arts/artists_aim_to_leave_mark_on_2008_election

The Kansas City Star:
http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/story/681001.html