Pennies on the Roof
While travelling through Arkansas last summer (2014), I spent a day in Eureka Springs. This town is built into the side of a steep hill, leading to interesting interactions with the architecture for the visitor. Streets ran parallel but increasingly lower in altitude, so many buildings opening at the first floor on one street would open at the second floor at a parallel street. In visiting the Catholic church in Eureka (St. Elizabeth of Hungary), a similar occurrence happened: the street-level approach was a story above the actual entrance of the church, bringing the visitor up against the roof of the rectory before rolling around the building’s edge to the front of the church. On this roof, visitors had thrown pennies, hundreds of pennies that caught a strong glint of the afternoon sun. Other tourists were nearby participating in the activity; when I asked one why he threw his penny, he seemed baffled by the question. The implication was, what need is there to ask, this is what’s done.
While travelling through Arkansas last summer (2014), I spent a day in Eureka Springs. This town is built into the side of a steep hill, leading to interesting interactions with the architecture for the visitor. Streets ran parallel but increasingly lower in altitude, so many buildings opening at the first floor on one street would open at the second floor at a parallel street. In visiting the Catholic church in Eureka (St. Elizabeth of Hungary), a similar occurrence happened: the street-level approach was a story above the actual entrance of the church, bringing the visitor up against the roof of the rectory before rolling around the building’s edge to the front of the church. On this roof, visitors had thrown pennies, hundreds of pennies that caught a strong glint of the afternoon sun. Other tourists were nearby participating in the activity; when I asked one why he threw his penny, he seemed baffled by the question. The implication was, what need is there to ask, this is what’s done.
After returning home, I researched the practice of throwing pennies onto roofs and came to an interesting revelation: there’s no Catholic precedent for this type of behavior. Instead, the activity is rooted in maintenance. Pennies scattered on a roof will help prevent moss from growing on the shingles, and so this practice was begun not in any type of reverence but through duty to preservation. The mundane has become the sacred at this intersection – or rather, the mundane becomes whatever the visitor chooses it to be, whether that is blessing, prayer, good luck gesture, or game.
Last September I produced Pennies on the Roof, a piece mirroring my encounter with the rectory roof in Eureka Springs. In the piece, a segment of dark burnt sienna roof (six by four feet, standing at 45 inches high with a slope of 20 degrees) stands before the viewer. All across the surface of the roof, pennies have gathered and collected. On the floor at the roof's base, a white gutter sits, holding a presence somewhere between trough and altar. Several feet in front of this, there is a pedestal with a smaller gutter holding many, many more pennies.
Last September I produced Pennies on the Roof, a piece mirroring my encounter with the rectory roof in Eureka Springs. In the piece, a segment of dark burnt sienna roof (six by four feet, standing at 45 inches high with a slope of 20 degrees) stands before the viewer. All across the surface of the roof, pennies have gathered and collected. On the floor at the roof's base, a white gutter sits, holding a presence somewhere between trough and altar. Several feet in front of this, there is a pedestal with a smaller gutter holding many, many more pennies.
With the pedestal in the forefront, my hope was to beckon the viewer and prompt interaction - throwing, flipping, tossing pennies onto the mass already assembled on the roof. By taking part in this action, the spectator becomes involved in creating a form for that penny. It is no longer just a penny - it is a wish, or a thought, or a gesture. And once landed, it is joined to a new group, forming part of a new whole.
The roof form mirrors a wishing well in this construct - a place where the act of pitching a penny is both instinctual and partially meditative as a familiar social practice. The structure is different, however. The roof cannot hold pennies in the same way that a well or fountain can - things shift and slide, and some may be lost below. For many participants, a game arose out of the behavior of the pennies, bringing the history of the action from janitorial duty to solemn action to leisurely task.
The visual form of the piece transfers easily to painting. On the roof structure, pennies began to accumulate, to pile and well up into a mass of copper holding the plane of shingles. The effect approaches pointillism, moving to create illusion through the stippling pattern of the pennies and in turn yielding again the effect of the Threshold, the moment of potential transformation.
The roof form mirrors a wishing well in this construct - a place where the act of pitching a penny is both instinctual and partially meditative as a familiar social practice. The structure is different, however. The roof cannot hold pennies in the same way that a well or fountain can - things shift and slide, and some may be lost below. For many participants, a game arose out of the behavior of the pennies, bringing the history of the action from janitorial duty to solemn action to leisurely task.
The visual form of the piece transfers easily to painting. On the roof structure, pennies began to accumulate, to pile and well up into a mass of copper holding the plane of shingles. The effect approaches pointillism, moving to create illusion through the stippling pattern of the pennies and in turn yielding again the effect of the Threshold, the moment of potential transformation.