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Green Party Sees Red Over 'Animals' Project.


By Nicole M. Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 11, 2002; Page C01

"The Divine Miss Donkee," with her hot pink and gold-flowered dress, freshly painted nails and blue-tinted sunglasses, is waiting to hit the streets this month with the rest of the city's 200 "Party Animals" -- unless a judge decides otherwise.

The D.C. Statehood Green Party is asking for a temporary restraining order for the arts project, which plans to place 200 plastic donkeys and elephants across the city as part of an effort to promote tourism.

"If they're going to insist on using political symbols," says Green Party member Michael Piacsek, "by any definition, we're a major party, and we should be included in the project."

Piacsek, a member of the party's steering committee, is co-plaintiff in a lawsuit against the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to try to force it to include the Green symbol -- a sunflower. In January the commission turned down the party's request that 100 sunflowers become a part of the arts project.

"The 'Party Animals' project is an arts project," says Tony Gittens, executive director of the commission. "It's not a political project."

When the commission was looking for a symbol for the city (pandas, squirrels and the Washington Monument were among the images considered), it decided "donkeys and elephants were most appropriate," Gittens says. If the Greens' sunflower "was an appropriate icon, we would have considered it."

But Piacsek says that doesn't matter. In the last presidential election, the party -- with Ralph Nader heading its ticket -- won 6 percent of the District vote. The GOP won 9 percent.

A U.S. District Court judge will weigh in April 19.

The commission is moving ahead with its plans. Starting April 23, it expects to begin putting 10 animals a day on city streets, with all 200 on display by May 10.

The commission waded through 1,200 design applications to choose the artists to decorate the 200 animals. Most participants -- who are paid $1,200, including $200 for supplies -- have been working on their sculptures in the cold caverns of the old Woodward & Lothrop building downtown.

"I think it'd be a shame if this project gets delayed or canceled because of politics," says Jill H. Krasner, whose Miss Donkee is scheduled to be on display in Dupont Circle.

"It's the most fun project that I've worked on in years," says the 61-year-old writer and illustrator from Olney.

Miss Donkee is "what Bette Midler would look like if she was a donkey," Krasner jokes.

Her fellow artists -- most of whom are local but include people from Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia and even Tokyo -- have been inspired in numerous ways.

An elephant covered in postcards becomes "Travel Trunk," another awash in newspapers is "Media Circus."

Marla McLean and Lamar Davis, both of Silver Spring, are working on "Magic Carpet Ride." McLean, an elementary school art teacher, came up with a mosaic design of glass and mirror to cover their elephant.

"I looked at a lot of Hindu art and the deities," says McLean, 38.

McLean and Davis may agree on their design, but they seem torn over the Green Party issue.

"I think it's sad that the Green Party would try to stop a community, art-based project," McLean says.

"I would have loved to have had it," says Davis, 33.

Clare Wilson is working on two sculptures: a bride and groom.

Wilson, 55, also of Silver Spring, wrapped her elephant with a skirt of window screen edged with lacy tablecloth. Her donkey is sporting a satin-lapel jacket and tuxedo shirt from the Salvation Army.

Wilson is in the camp that believes it would have been better to include the Green Party. "I think they should be outspoken . . . I would support them entirely."

Piacsek says, of course, that he'd hoped his party and the city could have settled the issue outside of the courts but that "the commission painted us into this corner."