Money permeates our thoughts, directs our actions, and determines our status. We are the money that we've earned, the money we will make, the money we owe, and the money we wish we had. Coins represent a mere sliver of our transactions, discarded at each day's end only to appear again tomorrow. We think little of our coins, for even after long periods of time they add up to very little compared to our dollars, yet constantly we carry and accumulate them. Artists whose names are obscure have been hired by the government to create portraits of great figures to adorn our coins, yet most people never look twice at their faces or details. Coins to us are round metal afterthoughts, recognizable mainly by the subtle difference in their sizes and shapes. We've been trained to know without thinking which coins have ridges and which are smooth, and how many it takes of each to make a dollar, yet we'd have to stop and think if someone asked what words are written on them all, or whose likenesses adorn them. Coins are the least important detail in most lives, and an extremely important resource in many others.
I chose to make giant coin sculptures for two reasons. First of all, I liked the fact most every viewer would be able to check the accuracy of my studies by pulling exact replicas of the models I used out of their pockets. Secondly, I wanted to confront and destroy the notion that money is the one thing artists don't usually make.