Last night we chowed down at Pauline’s Pizza with a bunch of friends. Pauline’s walls are decorated by art from Creativity Explored, a local non-profit for artists with developmental disabilities. We own a bunch of pieces from these artists because Caroline finds the whimsy to be beautiful and mission to be inspiring.

I too enjoy the art, lots of smiling faces and animals. But perversely I’m always left with another question: what do they do with the art that expresses, um, a darker side of these artists? I mean these people can’t only want to paint happy scenes? When i worked at Mattel there was a locked dumpster where the deformed Barbie dolls went to be shredded. Is there the same thing at Creativity Explored. When the developmentally challenged artist is feeling a bit glum and wants to paint, uh, less optimistic scenes, do they rip up the paper? “No Roger, no more knives with faces and dragons eating babies.”