The last penny was minted last week; 232 years after they were first created, the copper coins are no more.
In some ways, it makes sense. You can’t buy anything with a penny anymore — even if you happened to use cash and coins to pay for something.
The United States Department of the Treasury said it cost more to mint a penny than the penny was even worth.
But local artist Heidi Dauphin sees pennies as worth a little bit more.
Dauphin has used pennies in her work for decades, and she visited the studio to talk more about it.
Full conversation
GILGER: Welcome back to The Show, Heidi.
LAUREN GILGER: You have worked with pennies for a long time, as well as a lot of other mediums. But let’s talk about your penny date quilt first.
So you just finished this — it sounds like maybe by force — and it’s made up of pennies literally sewn to the material. And each penny’s date has a meaning for you, right?
DAUPHIN: Yeah, I made it as a response to the quilt show at the Vision Gallery in Chandler, and the theme was minimalism. “Art Quilts: Palette Cleanser” is the title, and I decided to go back to something I’ve used a lot, which was pennies, and each square has just one penny. So it’s a very subtle quilt, but each penny represents a date that I was alive, starting with when I was born in 1970. And when I made it just two months ago, I didn’t know 2025 would be the last penny, but that is this year, and it’s called “Penny Date Quilt (My Life So Far).”
GILGER: Right. But there are some unfilled squares, right? Like that will, I guess, never be filled.
DAUPHIN: Yes. I know. So I made it so that it’s actually 60 squares. So I wanted it to be a square. I don’t know why I didn’t think about making it differently. So there are four squares that now will not have pennies. There’s no 2026 penny.
GILGER: There’s no 2026 penny. OK, so as you mentioned, you’ve worked with pennies for a long time. Tell us kind of why. Like what about pennies makes you inspired as an artist?
DAUPHIN: Well, I think multiples is what inspires me. And so, I started working with pennies, I guess about 20 years ago. I covered a 10-foot fiberglass guitar for Guitar Mania in Phoenix with pennies, and there were about 10,000 pennies.
GILGER: 10,000 pennies!
DAUPHIN: And many people have asked me in the last few days, “Well, how much is that guitar worth now?” So, I don’t know. You do the math, and now, the calculated math. I don’t know.
But when I was making it, I used pennies in shades like shiny, medium, dark or faded. But while I was making that, I started looking at the dates of pennies and ever since then, so for the last 20 years, when I see a penny, I look at the date and I kind of think about what happened to me in that year. What does that year represent? And so then there’s a vein of penny art for me that has to do with dates, and that was definitely the penny date quilt that I just made.
GILGER: Where do you find all of these pennies? Especially now, how might you find them in the future?
DAUPHIN: Yeah, that’s a good question. Everyone said, “Do you have enough pennies?” And no, I don’t. There’s never enough pennies. But, I’ve collected pennies since I was a little kid. I think it was just something, and I’ve saved them and I’ve used them.
I thought that the guitar would use up the pennies 20 years ago. It did not. But now I feel this need that like, “Oh no, they’re gone.” Like we might need more. So people do give me pennies. My mom saved pennies for me. So, I’m a collector.
GILGER: So if anyone has a collection of pennies they’re looking to get rid of for a good use. It sounds like you’re a little sad about this news though, right? Like you’re sad to say goodbye to the penny.
DAUPHIN: Oh yeah, because it’s just been I don’t know. It’s been a part of my life, and it’s a part of my art. And so it ends this year.
So I didn’t know that when I was making — I knew it was coming. They talked about it, but when I made this quilt, I did not know this was it. So now it even means more, and maybe there has to be another date penny piece before the end of the year, I don’t know, that represents 2025.
GILGER: Let me ask you kind of how this is a sign of the times, right? Like everything is digital now, including our money. So like, what does it mean to you? How do you think about the penny as not just a date, which you talked about, but this physical thing that you use in this physical way that you could not use a credit card?
DAUPHIN: Yeah, oh, that’s a big question, I think about that a lot. In a lot of my art, I’ve focused on handwriting too, that we don’t use handwriting anymore and how that’s important. I save lists. I was interviewed here before about that.
So it’s just another sign of the times, like there is no more physical penny. When will there be no more physical change, really? I mean, it’s becoming obsolete. So like just different things that come up in my art that are no longer available to us.
But I guess I didn’t start using those things with that intention, but now it becomes clearer and more important to me, the physicality of art has always been. My background is in clay, and so I do like a tactile thing. I’m interested in materials, both made and collected.
I don’t know. Does that answer the question?
GILGER: Absolutely. Let me ask you lastly what you might do with pennies going forward now. I mean, they have a very different meaning now, now that they’re no longer being made. They are obsolete in this way. They weren’t when you started this 20 years ago. What do you think?
DAUPHIN: Everything’s changed in like four days. I do have a pipe dream of a project. I have a 1977 Volkswagen Beetle in the back of my car that I’ve always wanted to cover with pennies.
GILGER: An entire car?
DAUPHIN: An entire car, but it’s little. Those cars are little.
GILGER: They are little, but still a car.
DAUPHIN: So now that’s become a little more important. I’m not sure. But I don’t have enough pennies for that. So that’s the first thing that comes to mind. But I think I need to do something more with dates also in the future.
GILGER: It might add another layer to the meaning of all of this work too?
DAUPHIN: Yes, definitely, definitely. I mean, it’s sad. There’s not going to be a 2026 penny.
