My mission to turn coins from worthless trinkets into something of value continues. This week I pit insect against man, winner takes all.
Chopping up money is addictive, satisfying, but in the end you're left with tons of tiny scraps.
In art, as in life, the tiniest bits of crumbs, accumulated over time, serve to sustain vast ecosystems, populated by diverse organisms.
Scientific observation shows, time and time again, a sophisticated order to things that cannot be ignored nor understood.
The complex moment we all share is built of more things than could ever be known, yet all aspects of everything share certain similar patterns.
Cutting through coins to make objects has helped me to feel as if I'm making an impact on the environment, adding to the pattern, increasing culture, decreasing stagnation.
Unlike the coins we leave lying in the gutter, these are objects that cannot be ignored. They now tell a story to those from the future.
Taking a coin from circulation and designating it as artwork is better than throwing it into a fountain: your wish materializes before you. Better yet, it can be shared with others.
When a coin is converted into art, it becomes special, and there's no way to undo that. Forever and ever, Amen.
Were there a way to tabulate the amount of times a single coin has been spent, some of the oldest pennies might represent thousands of dollars, ticked away over decades, one one-hundredth at a time.
How many pockets? How many purses?
How many cash drawers and rolls, how many vending machine slots? In the end, still worth next to nothing.
I stop the cycle, freeing the coins themselves from an existence of servitude. Like molecules in primordial ooze, from coins life emerges.
When I consider how much money I've ruined in my obsession to make art, I feel no sense of guilt or loss.
If you squint your eyes just right, the entire world is made of chopped money already, I'm just mimicking what's already been true for all time. I am freezing what normally flows.
1 comment:
I love your blog its very creative and original
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