On Sunday my family and I decided to stop at the Rotary Art Show and to see our 10 year old son's picture that was on display there. What a great way to encourage kids to develop their artistic abilities and be proud to display them for their peers and others in the community to see, but.

When we walked into the auditoriums lobby, the first pictures displayed on standing easels as a special showcase that began our tour, stunned us and displeased us greatly. For any of you that were there this weekend, I'm sure you know what we saw. Not only was it the very first thing that you saw when you walked in, but to display them on easels individually was quite a statement in itself.

Obviously, the person or persons who had done the pictures did a good job, because there was no doubt that they were naked women. But when you are with your children ages (7, 10 and 15) I just didn't feel it was an appropriate place to be on display being it was open to the community. What is concerning for me is that the majority of the artwork, approximately 280 of them on display, were done by children and teenagers from five different surrounding schools that participated.

I know there are those of you out there who are reading this and thinking, well, this is art and you should be looking at this as an artist's point of view and not be so shallow in your knowledge of what art is. But can I ask you a question before you condemn me for my opinion and this may seem a little drastic in comparison, but hopefully help you understand where I am coming from. Would you let your children look at a Playboy magazine or any other magazines that show naked women or men in a seductive pose? I hope you are all saying, "no I would not because that's not art".

If you look at it from a photographer's point of view, who considers themselves artists, they would tell you that it is art.

This may not seem an issue to write a letter to the editor about to most of you, but pornography is too open in this country and destroys too many people and relationships, so I am going to share my opinion for those of you out there who have a voice, but like myself have been too silent to share it in the past.

So after all, we did continue through the place and saw some very nice displays of art and did see our son's picture as well and over all was a nice show.
Jerome and Michelle Barrett
Staples, Minn.