But sometimes, garbage is just… garbage.<\/p>\n
I like to think of this pennies pile as a sculpture. Although, I’m not a sculptor. Will I become one, by creating this work?<\/p>\n
I like to think of this sculpture as a dynamic, three-dimensional expression of my days. But does that make it art?<\/p>\n
To paraphrase\u00a0Art Space’s defense of Tracy Emin’s “My Bed”<\/a>: Of course it is, because I said so.<\/p>\n Art is largely defined by intent. You might have an opinion as to whether a work of art is skilled or unskilled, meaningful or blas\u00e9; but if the creator says, “I am making a piece of art,” then so be it.<\/p>\n Intent was key to\u00a0my deliberations as I composed the beginnings of this sculpture. Discerning and refining my own intent was a long process, weeks in the making, from back in March\u00a0when the idea first emerged, until now – when the first three\u00a0weeks\u00a0are nearly over.<\/p>\n But finally, today, I knew I could not continue to deliberate. It was time to cement the chosen pennies in place.<\/p>\n I had\u00a0been hoping that a clear structure would\u00a0emerge, something that creates the outline of a grand plan. I categorized, shuffled, tried different ways to create a base that would pass the test of time.<\/p>\n Then I realized\u00a0that these pennies and their placement really are<\/strong> like days: You can only plan so much. Life will happen. Days will fall where they may.<\/p>\n Once they are over you cannot change them. You have to live with your decisions\u00a0and move on.<\/p>\n Building on top of your past – whether it is strong, stable and beautiful, or off-kilter, messy and uncertain – is simply what makes the structure of your life. Of you.<\/p>\n My intent was to create a base that was stable yet flexible, one that would continue to engage a variety of days.<\/p>\n I was only very rigid about the first penny. With each succeeding one, I simply tried to give thought and meaning to the placement of the\u00a0penny.<\/p>\n The first day’s penny is squarely in the center of the 11 by 14 acrylic base – I measured it:<\/p>\n The other pennies I placed in relation to that one. So, the good, structural, strong days I placed on top of that core central penny.<\/p>\n The ones that were not so great went off to the left. The ones that were positive by means of some effort that I made are on the right.<\/p>\n The ones to do with spirit and, as today’s, art are above the center.<\/p>\n And finally, here it is, in its current form.<\/p>\n I have also done a time-lapse of the construction<\/a> of this sculpture so far.<\/p>\n (More about the materials tomorrow.)<\/p>\n Today’s coin is the 2009 of Lincoln reading – you can see it directly above the center coin:<\/p>\n Because it is a dynamic\u00a0story, better than\u00a0the marble Lincoln memorial of pennies past.<\/p>\n Because Lincoln was a man who built on the structure he was given\u00a0… he built a distinguished career\u00a0on top of a meager\u00a0foundation, led a war to unite a divided nation, and pulled together a life that was as meaningful as any human’s has been – even though it was cut short.<\/p>\n Because his life was a different kind of art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How will I make this pile of pennies a work of art, rather than just … a pile of pennies? This is a question that bothers me. Most days, I’m pretty liberal in my definition of art, but other times I roll my eyes at some of the puffy, BS artist statements that elevate unskilled … read more Day 20: Is it art?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19,35,80,62],"class_list":["post-4448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pennies","tag-19","tag-art","tag-life","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4448"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5032,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4448\/revisions\/5032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Measuring](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/center-2-4589-300x275.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Measuring](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/center-1-4588-300x235.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Day](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Day-20-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"2009](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2009-Lincoln-reading-4499-300x273.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n