Stacey Lee Webber's painstaking work mints value from pennies

Stacey Lee Webber's works made from old pennies are featured in the "Tributaries" series at the National Ornamental Metal Museum.

Despite our disdain, pennies are real money. The profile of one of our favorite presidents, Abraham Lincoln, adorns one side of this humble 1-cent coin, while his austere memorial in Washington is depicted on the other side, or at least it was from 1959 to 2008; starting in 2010, the Lincoln Memorial was replaced by the Union Shield.

The penny, which has not been pure copper since 1837, is composed of copper-coated zinc in a proportion of 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper. When we say, "A penny for your thoughts," the implication must be that the thoughts of the person addressed aren't worth much, though value accumulates, as the old saw "a penny saved is a penny earned" confirms.

In other words, the penny is an icon, and icons, since time immemorial, have been ripe for alteration, defacement, embellishment and parody.

Metal artist Stacey Lee Webber takes all of these notions to heart in her work that consists of untold thousands of pennies that she manipulates in unexpected ways. A group of her most recent pieces, "Penny Chain," opens during a reception from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday at the National Ornamental Metal Museum as part of the "Tributaries" series. Webber, originally from Indianapolis, has lived in Philadelphia since August. She has a bachelor of fine arts degree from Ball State University (2005) and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin at Madison (2008).

Turning a round penny into a square shape, or punching out of a penny the shape of Lincoln, Webber uses these tiny objects to fashion chains in remarkable intricacy, flags and commemorative ribbons, or, in "The Craftsman Series," a hammer, a saw, screwdrivers and even a full-size stepladder. She uses only pennies minted between 1962 and 1982, when the 1-cent coin consisted of 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc.

To the assertion that such work is somewhat obsessive, the 28-year-old artist agrees.

"Oh, it's labor-intensive, no question," Webber said during a telephone interview this week from her studio in Philadelphia. "There's a lot of work involved even before I start making something."

The first and ongoing step is collecting pennies. Webber keeps a bucket outside her door for donations, but mainly she buys pennies in $25 "bricks" of 2,500 pennies, usually two each month. "The first thing I have to do is separate them," she said, "because only two pennies in 10 have enough copper. Separating them isn't so hard. It's actually sort of meditative. I can do it watching television." The unused pennies go back to the bank to be exchanged for others.

The next step is removing the center of the coin or shaping it into a square. "Just to get a penny down to a square is real work," said Webber. "I have to mark it and cut it down with metal shears." Only then is she ready to make a piece.

"The Craftsman Series," with its focus on hand tools, delves into the heart of Webber's concern with labor and the value that society places on work and the objects that emerge from studio, workshop and factory.

"When I was in graduate school," the artist said, "I wanted to delve into my family history and background to try and discover why I made art the way I did. I come from a blue-collar family of hard workers, and my concern was with placing a value on labor and on a made object."

Obviously, making a work of art with a form of money as the material already places a strictly monetary value on it, but such an orthodox consideration doesn't account for the imaginative capital that went into it or the technical prowess and the labor itself. Webber sees the dichotomy clearly as well as the attitude that people will bring to an encounter with artworks made of pennies.

"People are passionate about pennies," she said. "Either they throw them away, or they hoard them. I think people get really sentimental about them. However they feel, no one really wants to give them up. They're valuable in some way."

Stacey Lee Webber: "Tributaries: Penny Chain"

At National Ornamental Metal Museum, 374 Metal Museum Drive, through May 8. Opening reception 2-5 p.m. Saturday; free admission, refreshments, hands-on activities. Call 774-6380. or visit metalmuseum.org.

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