“La vida es una moneda… quien la rebusca la tiene; Life is a coin… he who searches for it has it” (Juan Carlos Baglietto, “La Vida es una moneda”)

The concept of cutting coins as well as the materials we use in our work, which can be found almost anywhere, are basic.  A coin can captivate anyone’s interest for many reasons.   People are drawn to our coin-art because of heritage, birth year, love of a country one has traveled to or merely an interest in the image that appears on a coin: a dog, a boat, an historical figure.  Someone celebrating their 25^th wedding anniversary may choose a coin with a big “25 centavos” on the front.  Another person may decide on a coin from the year in which a friend was born as a birthday gift.  Someone else may be captivated by a coin from Thailand in honor of a trip they took the previous year.  A coin from Finland may draw someone else because it is their country of birth.  There was once a man who, on approaching our table, came upon a coin from Belgium, his country of origin.  He recognized it instantly as a coin from 1963 commemorating the mine workers of his country.  He became very emotional at the sight of the coin because his father had been a miner in Belgium.  Needless to say, he bought the coin and walked away with a look of pride on his face.  It’s stories like this one that make us realize how something so simple, a coin, something you can find lying in the middle of the street, something people collect in an old rusty jar in their basement or in a plastic bag in a drawer, can be so meaningful to someone for one reason and to someone else for another, and they may not even know it until they see it on our table, transformed artistically.

Monedarte or Coin-Art is the artistic transformation of coins.  We start by taking coins from different countries around the world, we drill holes through the coins in order to insert our saw blades, and then cut around the figures on the coins.  We always strive for perfection in our work although we know very well that it is in fact impossible for any hand-crafted work of art to be perfect.  This is also the beauty of hand-crafted art and what makes it unique.  Coins come in all different combinations of metals, (copper, nickel, silver, bronze, aluminum, just to name a few) and we have expanded our work outside the realms of coins alone to include coconut shell, tagwa (a seed from the Amazon regions of Latin America) and other metals.  Using the same technique and tools as for cutting coins we cut out other symbols and designs, often custom-made, into these different materials.  There are very few limits to what we can create and in what material we can create it in.  We feel we have succeeded in our work when someone picks up a coin from our table and a look of awe comes over their face.  They just can’t believe that we were able to transform a coin the way we have, and on top of that, that we even have a coin from their home country.  

Years of travelling and learning about different cultures of the world have inspired us in our work, and our coin-art has crossed every border along with us.  Through our travels we have learned not only the art of cutting coins and many other forms of artisanal work, but also how coins are such significant and fascinating symbols of a country.  Coins can be found in every country in the world; all you have to do it search.