Diane Nelson, retired Pinellas County Tax Collector, brought Kids Tag Art to Pinellas County in 2015 with the goal of raising money for arts education in Pinellas County. Via the Kids Tag Art program, Pinellas County's 5th graders have the opportunity to design their own license plate in art class. It’s not the official Florida state tag that you put on the back of your car — it’s one of those decorative front plates that people sometimes get, called vanity plates.
The project is a great opportunity for elementary art teachers to introduce their students to design principles. At Bardmoor elementary in Seminole, Kristine Van Ingen, aka. Ms. V, introduced her students to the work of Roy Lichtenstein, an American pop artist during the 1960s. Lichtenstein took a lot of inspiration from comic books. Whaam! is one of his most popular works, featuring an exploding plane with the word Whaam! in bold yellow letters.
Bold lettering is relatively common in Lichtenstein’s works, which are decorated with words like Pow!, Crack! and Crash. Van Engen’s students clearly took inspiration from this, incorporating some bold lettering into their own designs. All of her fifth grade students participated, and three earned awards of excellence for their work.
In just three years, Kids Tag Art has already raised over $100,000 for elementary arts education — 43 schools and 2,000 5th graders from all over the county participated this year. Of these, 128 students — that averages about three per school — received awards of excellence at the Kids Tag Art Pinellas Award Ceremony.
The Kids Tag Art program is supported by a combination of community sponsors and private sales. This is where you come in. If you would like to support arts education in Pinellas County elementary schools, you can purchase one of these vanity plates for $15 online. They look pretty amazing for something a bunch of 10-year-olds scribbled with markers. Many of the plates are Florida-themed, picturing palm trees, ocean, boats, sea life and sand in bold, bright colors. Others feature interesting geometric patterns, emojis, and creative lettering.
If you choose to buy a plate, $1 of the sale will go to fine art scholarships through St. Petersburg College, and the remaining $14 will go to the participating elementary schools for art supplies. And you'll have a unique vanity plate that shows the world (or at least everyone driving down U.S.19) just how much you care about arts education.
