Washington state's design is among those that shine artistically

Note: This review has been updated. Incorrect illustrations were originally used in some places.

Say your mom loved your second-grade floral painting and hung it on the refrigerator with heart magnets. Her praise may have been unstinting but she knew your treasure wouldn't rate a flicker of interest from the cold-cash world.

There are exceptions. If you became the equivalent of Jacob Lawrence or Georgia O'Keeffe, none of this applies. Your every scribble is worth money. But if you never reach that status, your youthful failures to achieve a likeness are either long gone or fading in a family album.

The bad news continues. Most art produced by professional artists and sold in galleries declines in value.

There is a shiny metal light in this dim picture, however.

In 1999, the U.S. Mint decided to enliven our monetary transactions with new art on the back of the 25-cent piece.

While George Washington continues to pose in profile on the front, the art on the back is in creative flux, with nothing at stake but state pride. Bad art will not degrade the value of the money, nor will good increase it.

To rise to this artistic challenge, most states turned to children. Prompted by teachers, children proposed symbols they liked, and politicians picked a few. Some states, such as Washington, submitted several designs to the voters. In every state, the governor approved the mint's proposed final product.

To nobody's surprise, most designs attempt to tell their state's story, and because politicians don't want to offend anybody by leaving their part of the story out, these narrative tableaux are stuffed to their gills.

On Wednesday at a ceremony in Seattle, Gov. Christine Gregoire rolls out the Washington state quarter -- No. 1 in our hearts, No. 42 in the series.

Being the 42nd state to join the union, we are late to enter the quarters makeover game, as the coins are being released in order of statehood. Delaware was first and Hawaii will be the final entry late next year.

With 42 versions now in circulation, it's not too early to take a look at the state styles that are emerging through coinage.

Rare is the coin that allows a visual element free play. And yet, at least 10 did.

THE TOP TEN

WASHINGTON: Go, us. A king salmon leaping out of the water on the left with Mount Rainier on the right. The salmon is bigger than the mountain, which makes its fishy presence pop. The mountain in the rear hunkers down into a grizzled, geological hump. Just as the salmon explodes, the mountain appears to implode, a nice contrast.

OREGON: Crater Lake, its bowl resting against the lip of a mountain's low curve, with a pair of conifers looming in the forefront.

MONTANA: Lean and lovely, with a big bison skull floating over land. Near the low-slung jaw, the resonant words "Big Sky Country."

CONNECTICUT: The Charter Oak fills the frame yet leaves room for air.

IOWA: A homage to one of the state's greatest artists, Grant Wood, in an image of a schoolhouse based on his painting "Arbor Day." I'll wager that Iowa politicians who approved it misunderstand Wood. He isn't celebrating small-town values as much as they think he is.

KANSAS: A loony buffalo, whose loose chest fur appears to be parting company from the animal's body. Strange is good. Plus there are sunflowers, a bunch by one of the beast's back legs.

MISSISSIPPI: Speaking of flowers, Mississippi turned its two bits into a pair of blooming magnolias.

NORTH CAROLINA: The first airplane flight, a long horizontal in the process of liftoff.

NEW JERSEY: Who knew Washington could cross the Delaware on a coin? This image, based on Emmanuel Leutze's 1851 painting of that title, is small in size but massive in its confidence and authority.

NEVADA: Girly-girl folk art strikes it big in Nevada, with mustangs. Were politicians and the populace thinking of the Mustang Ranch? Salute those sex workers and tip the hat to cowboys at the same time. This is the only coin clever enough to evoke a variety of meanings.

THE B TEAM

COLORADO: The Rockies fit the space of a quarter as if it were their natural home. But just awful are the words at the base, "Colorful Colorado." If there had to be words, why not "Rocky Mountain High"? Stoners would have been so proud.

GEORGIA: Georgia should have stuck with the peach, which is hard to mess up in metal. Instead, it hangs in a state-shaped frame, with oak sprigs at the border and a sales pitch on a trailing ribbon. According to its quarter, this state is known for "Wisdom, Justice and Moderation." Why not "Georgia on My Mind"? It's more elegant, easier to sing and less open to ridicule.

ALABAMA: How thoughtful to pick a portrait of Helen Keller, but she's sitting in a chair apparently missing her legs, and lacking legs was not her problem. Plus, again, the design is crowded. Nice touch, though, of writing Keller's name twice, the second time in Braille.

MAINE: Love the Pemaquid Point lighthouse. Alone on a cliff against a stretch of open water, it would have been swell. But the schooner in the distance is corny, and what's up with the birds? They wandered into the scene from a child's drawing.

DELAWARE: Hard to find fault with this profile on horseback of Caesar Rodney, who rode 80 miles in a heat wave with cancer to cast his vote for independence. I believe he's riding backward, however, not exactly the intended message.

VERMONT: If I were the decider in Vermont, I also might have picked Camel's Hump mountain in the background with maple trees and sap buckets in the fore. And yet why do these trees look as if they died in a brutal pruning?

NEBRASKA: An end-of-the-road-but-still-packing-heat frontier scene. It gets points for having the courage of its scary convictions.

TENNESSEE: Musical instruments in the air. The guitar could have carried it.

WEST VIRGINIA: Great steel-arch bridge -- the longest in the world -- but watch out for clutter below.

SOUTH DAKOTA: Can't miss with Mount Rushmore. But whose idea was it to add that swing-low, sweet-chariot pheasant sailing too near the startled faces of the presidents?

BENCHED BUT NOT CUT

TEXAS: Couldn't the state that bears the legend "Don't Mess With Texas" on its trash cans come up with something other than a state outline and a cold, dead star, the whole thing surrounded by a lariat?

CALIFORNIA: It's great to honor John Muir. However, standing at the base of Yosemite's Half Dome, with a California condor flying into his face, he looks as if he needs to duck.

WISCONSIN: Hey, Cheeseheads. Had you stuck with cheese, you would have been winners. That severed cow's head with a darling domestic bell is creepy, and the corn looks as if it's mutating.

OHIO: Deep-sea diver or space traveler? Hard to tell.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: The Old Man of the Mountain rock face is odd, and not in a good way. Reminds me of why I keep my visits there short. That, and the state motto making its mandatory appearance, "Live Free Or Die." Note to New Hampshire: Give peace a chance.

OFF THE FIELD

AND OUT OF THE RUNNING, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS TOO DEADLY DULL TO DISCUSS: South Carolina, Missouri, Louisiana, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Kentucky (horse in prison); North Dakota (if one buffalo is good, aren't two better?), Indiana, Rhode Island, New York, Arkansas, Florida and Michigan. How, Michigan, did you mess up a portrait of the Great Lakes?

Still waiting to show us what they have are Idaho, Wyoming and Utah this year, and Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii next.

FREE MONEY

Gov. Chris Gregoire will preside over the public debut of the Washington state quarter at 3 p.m. Wednesday in Fisher Pavilion, Seattle Center. Doors open at 2. Children 18 and younger will each get a free quarter, courtesy of Bank of America. Anyone will be able to buy the new quarters -- cash only, please -- in $10 rolls. To reserve a seat at the event, visit governor.wa.gov/quarter/default.htm.