Follow The Cent

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About

This is an obsession

This is a curiosity

This is a project

For a reason that I don't fully understand, I am attracted to discarded pennies. I've done several projects with them over the last 10 years and this is the current one. I started the blog in May of 2009 in order to create an archive of the pennies that I was finding.

In the beginning I was very strict about my methods. I was trying to record every instance of penny-finding that occurred, along with details such as the place and time of finding. This became quite a chore and there were several weeks during 2009 when I considered abandoning the project. I was finding pennies all the time, while riding my bike, while out with friends, while working - it was not possible to stop for every penny.

However, rather than jump ship, I decided to renew my commitment, with some alterations.

The project is now quite simple

Project: Follow The Cent

Duration: January 1, 2010 - December 31, 2010

Goal: To document discarded pennies for one year.

Parameters: The pennies must be clearly discarded. If they are found in a place of business, such as a restaurant or shop, where they could be said to belong to that space, they will not be counted. However, pennies found in interior spaces such as restrooms, elevators, and other non-commercial public spaces will be included.

I do not document every penny that I see (although I do get most of them). Reasons for not documenting include:

No time (There are times, mostly when I am riding my bike, and especially when I am running late, that I do not stop to document a penny that I see on the street or sidewalk.)

No camera (or having a dead battery)

Danger (Sometimes I see a penny that is in a busy intersection and there is too much traffic to get close enough to capture the image.)

Curiosities: This project brings up a lot of questions for me that I continue to contemplate as I go through the process, and that I hope to address eventually through some kind of text. Some of these questions are:

-How many pennies will i find if I pick up each one for a year?

-If I find x pennies in a year, and I am just one person, how many pennies are out there on the street?

-What is the significance of acknowledging value, even when that value is very small?

-Is money in the street a symptom of some kind of economic/social/cultural condition?

-What place do street pennies have in our visual/cultural landscape?

I'm also paying attention to some of the more subjective aspects of doing this project. I'm observing the affect that this discipline and practice has on my daily routine, and state of mind.

Observation: One of the most interesting things to notice so far are the visual constants and variables.

The penny is constant: a small round, often reflective disk. It's usually in the center but sometimes off to the side or even hard to discern, depending on light and detritus.

What changes are the environments that the penny is in: Indoors, Outdoors, street, sidewalk; on asphalt, on concrete, tile, grass, dirt, trash...