The United States Mint's engraving staff has again angered a State quarter designer with the changes made to submitted designs.
Brian Kent, of Gardiner, Maine, supplied one of the four designs selected by Maine's Gov. Angus King for refinement for coinability by the Mint.
Kent's design features a Wabanaki Indian paddling a canoe in a lake overlooked by Mount Katahdin, the focal point of the design. Kent's design is asymmetrical, with a grove of pine trees framing the lake and mountain from the left.
The Mint's rendering of Kent's design differs significantly from the original. The design is now centered, with two stands of evergreen trees framing a distant Mount Katahdin. The canoeing Indian paddles away from the shore in the design's center.
Kent said that the Mint's retooling of his design is "insulting" and that "it's [the design] an abomination, frankly."
"The peak isn't recognizable," he said, "the pine trees are not recognizable."
Indeed, the mountain's distinctive peak that is presented in Kent's original design is not visible in the Mint's rendering.
"People want to feature the mountain and not a molehill," he said.
According to Kent, the pines appearing in his design are specific varieties that are native to the area near Mount Katahdin, and the trees appearing on the Mint's design are generic pines. Also, Kent said, there are no lakes in Maine that feature a shoreline as proposed by the Mint. The canoe is too large in scale, Kent charged.
Kent said that he fully understood that he relinquished his rights to the design when he submitted it to the Maine State quarter dollar committee, and that the Mint must alter the designs to improve the design's ability to be coined.
With these regulations in mind, Kent said that he's not viewing the Mint's changes as "a personal thing."
He is also unhappy with the Mint's changes to the other three designs selected.
"These are bureaucratic artists interpreting a state that they know nothing about," Kent said.
One of the other designs depicts a lighthouse overlooking the Atlantic from a high, rocky cliff. According to Kent, Maine has no lighthouse that sits on such a cliff. Another design touts Maine as being home to OUR NATION'S FIRST LIGHT.
"Technically speaking, the first light is in [Alaska's] Aleutians," Kent said.
Kent said that Maine State Treasurer Dale McCormick told him that the four designs the Mint rendered are the second set the Mint sent back to Maine for selection. The first designs Maine got back were "so bad they were sent back," Kent said. Kent's design concept, when first retooled by the Mint, featured five people sitting in the canoe.
Kent is not the only artist to vocally protest Mint changes to his original design concept. Artist Paul Jackson has waged an extensive campaign against modifications made to his design for the Missouri quarter dollar, which is among the finalists for that state's coin. The design depicts the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and explorers in a canoe.
The four Maine designs were offered to Maine's citizens for voting through Aug. 7.
"My hope is that people will vote for the concept they like best," not the design, Kent said.
