Robert Wechsler and His Interesting Coin Lattices

Robert Wechsler and His Interesting Coin Lattices

Robert Wechsler utilizes an interesting medium for his sculptures – coins. Wechsler takes thousands and thousands of pennies, quarters, nickels and notches each and everyone so that he can assemble them into lattices, tubes, cubes and other amazing geometric shapes. At first I just thought it was a clever gimmick. But the more I watched this video the more arresting the shapes became – and I just absolutely adored the logic behind his naming of his pieces and the thought that went into the meaning behind each piece.

See? The Mendicant? Tell me that isn’t awesome. A person living without money, completely dependent on the generosity of others? Fantastic. Besides learning a new word I didn’t know yesterday, it also spun this work into a totally different direction for me. Should we live as mendicants? Do we under value the wealth we have been given? Are we too assumptive of the coins, the money, the amassed treasures we worship? Do I place anything higher than my own love for my God? My pleasure. My comfort? Is there anything that I wouldn’t give up at the end of the day if push came to shove? Or, worse yet, is there anything in my life that I cherish so much that I couldn’t let go of it when it is my time to die and prevent me from the clarity of perspective I am called to?

“A column achieved by notching and joining 15,000 newly minted US shield pennies in a dodecahedral lattice. The Caryatid was created for the group show In __ We Trust: Art and Money at the Columbus Museum of Art.

“An icon of ancient Greece, a caryatid is a sculpted maiden taking the place of an architectural pillar. She holds the temple roof aloft in an act both servile and godlike.”