Wednesday, March 11, 2020

License Plates Art

In 1987, the 200th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, Mike Wilkins, an artist from North Carolina, requested a vanity license plate from each of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia to piece together the first lines of a famous document. These license plates mean very little on their own, but when they are organized alphabetically by state name and read phonetically with a little creativity, they form the preamble to the Constitution.

It begins with six plates across the top row, from Alabama to Colorado: “WE TH  P PUL  OF TH  U NI  DIDD  ST8S,” and so on from there.

This wonderfully colorful and creative piece of art can now be found in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, hanging in an out-of-the-way hallway by the gift shops.


We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

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