In another thread, Absolute posted the proposed and rejected designs for the New Mexico state quarter.
The state outline, that sun symbol, and the words “Land of Enchantment.”
That’s it. All four proposals are the same thing, just different sizes/proportions.
New Mexico deserves better than that! Ninja Chick, Tabula Rasa, wanna get in on this? It is the land of enchantment, but its motto might as well be “YES, WE ARE A STATE!” The state quarter thing will probably help clear up that confusion, but this feels like, “Oh, right, you guys get a quarter. Here, my kid drew this on the menu at Denny’s.”
Other states get historical events, historical figures, natural and man-made landmarks, animals and suggestive fruit. Ohio, frakking Ohio, gets a two-fer: the Wright Brothers’ plane and John Glenn. What does New Mexico get? The sun symbol.
The sun symbol. Which is all most people think of when they hear “New Mexico,” assuming they know it’s a state. The balloons I would be okay with, although that might be the most frivolous state quarter theme. The nuke, though, would be the perfect way to stand up and say “Yeah! No Olympics tickets, huh? ‘Lizards make excellent pets’? You guys can’t even make up a good joke motto for us! Watch out or we’ll sic the aliens on you! Thought we were kidding, didja?”
Seriously, it doesn’t have to be the nuke. But it irks me that they can’t even prove the motto’s accuracy. There’s so much natural beauty in New Mexico. Even in monochrome, it could still be stunning. But this? I’ve seen better representation in road atlases. It’s just such a huge blind spot. There must be no one at the Mint to say, “Hey, I’ve been there, and those rock formations are awesome!” It feels like they just copped the sun symbol off the state flag because they don’t know there’s any there there. So New Mexico continues to be the redheaded stepchild of the USA.
