{"id":19353,"date":"2024-09-14T14:31:01","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T18:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/?p=19353"},"modified":"2024-09-19T03:22:44","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T07:22:44","slug":"art-of-the-dollar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/2024\/09\/14\/art-of-the-dollar\/","title":{"rendered":"Art of the dollar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Art of the dollar<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Money may well have made many a political career but one American artist has now forged his own success crafting politicians themselves out of cold hard cash.
Meticulously handcrafted using small pieces of money \u2013 mostly U.S. one-dollar bills \u2013 Mark Wagner\u2019s currency collages reconfigure the familiar green and black paper into mythical creatures, fantastical garden scenes, and US politicians past and present.
\u201cThe dollar bill is publicly valued, and I like making it privately valuable \u2013 or to reflect how rich the person is that I\u2019m depicting,\u201d says Wagner. \u201cA lot of American figures really are made by the U.S. currency.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Common denominator<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally a printer and specialist bookbinder who has long dabbled in collage, Wagner first started cutting up dollar bills as material for his art in 1999 after he went looking for the most \u201ccommon\u201d paper he could find to use for one particular piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He soon came to realize the versatility money gave him as a medium, as well as the possibility to explore what money means to people and the essential part it plays in everyone\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMoney means different things to different people, but it\u2019s a subject that everyone is ready to comment on. But when you ask them \u2018what is money?\u2019, most people can\u2019t give a good answer and I dress those unknowns into my work,\u201d says Wagner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although he uses other types of paper, money has now been Wagner\u2019s primary artistic medium for the last decade and a half, with its texture and multifaceted designs translating well to his unique mosaic style.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Public wealth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first works were portraits of people \u2013 a style he says appeals to him because he likes making a publicly valued asset reflect someone\u2019s private wealth \u2013 and he has since expanded his work to include intricately composed scenes of mythological lands and creatures, famous landmarks and statement billboards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legal tender<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wagner has worked with other types of U.S. dollar bills and foreign currencies, and while he says he loves the colors and variety they offer, most of his work is now done with the one-dollar bill because of its versatility and abundance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI stumbled onto a niche benefit using the one-dollar bill,\u201d he says. \u201cAlso, the one dollar is not precious, and because I can get more, I have an infinite supply and don\u2019t get distracted with other possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He adds that as it\u2019s the only U.S. currency that hasn\u2019t been redesigned since it was finalized in 1963, it has also kept its \u201cbaroque elements\u201d and that the president on it \u2013 George Washington, as painted by Gilbert Stuart \u2013 is the only one that hasn\u2019t been airbrushed.[McCafferty, Georgia]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Personally, I am typically not a fan of collage-style art pieces but I find Mark Wagner\u2019s dollar bill collages really interesting. The US dollar bill is already a fairly intricate and detailed piece of paper. So to see Mark Wagner take that and create even more intricate patterns I think is really interesting. The artist comments on money and how it means something different to everyone. Money and finances are a very personal thing and there can often be a lot of stress or embarrassment. What can I take away from these art pieces? What can we learn about people’s attitudes and feelings towards finances and how can we use that to inform a design?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCafferty, Georgia. \u201cPolitical Portraits Crafted out of Currency.\u201d CNN<\/em>, Cable News Network, 27 Sept. 2016, www.cnn.com\/style\/article\/mark-wagner-currency-collage\/index.html.<\/a>
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Art of the dollar Money may well have made many a political career but one American artist has now forged his own success crafting politicians themselves out of cold hard cash.Meticulously handcrafted using small pieces of money \u2013 mostly U.S. one-dollar bills \u2013 Mark Wagner\u2019s currency collages reconfigure the familiar green and black paper into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":19410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19353"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21246,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19353\/revisions\/21246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}