Steamroller news

Public art promotes civic responsibility
Whimsical voting booths aim to encourage people to vote this November
By Nicole Kauffman, Herald-Times Staff Writer
September 24, 2004

Mary Blizzard spent the last few weeks making this voting booth, which will be on display downtown to encourage people to vote in November. Staff photo by Chris Howell.

They were constructed just like the real thing — but these voting booths aren't drab and expressionless.

And their political message is loud and clear: Get out and vote.

Expressing nonpartisan phrases — "Why Vote," "Vote As If Your Life Depended On It" and "Count Us In," for example — 20 plywood booths will line downtown streets from Sunday through Nov. 2 in the hope of getting nonvoters to the polls this year.

"And to raise awareness that elections are coming up," said Lara Weaver, family and community programs coordinator at Middle Way House, who helped enlist artists to decorate and adorn the booths.

"People are dying for that democratic process in other countries," she said.

Sections of Sixth and North Walnut streets and Kirkwood and North College avenues in close proximity to the downtown square will have the colorful and sometimes whimsical structures along their sidewalks.

Graphic designer Mary Blizzard decorated one that reads "VOTE! IT'S FUN!" Her goal is to break down voter intimidation, she said.

"I'm just trying to reach that population that is frightened" of voting, she said.

Toby Strout, executive director of Middle Way House, came up with the idea for the project at a meeting of the Advocacy and Outreach Committee of the Non-Profit Alliance, during discussion of the absence of voting among many people served by nonprofit groups.

Carpenters Local 1664 volunteered to pay for materials and construct the 62-inch-high structures, which artists then decorated at their homes or studios.

Local artists working in various media participated, including illustrator Joe Lee; sculptor Nick McGill; spray paint artist Giacomo DelRio; musician Sophia Travis; and cartoonist Mitchell Carver.

"They're all decorated in different styles and different themes," Strout said.

Stonebelt Community decorated a booth to raise awareness of the right and responsibility of disabled people to be politically active.

Mosaic, painting and metal artist Doug Arnholter's booth is interactive; visitors can write messages on black pieces of paper in his "Expressions of Bloomington."