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Asha Prihar \/ Spotlight PA
\nMedallic artist Eric David Custer at his workstation, showing his design for the tails side of the semiquincentennial dime on a computer screen.\n<\/p>\n
PHILADELPHIA \u2014 If you\u2019ve got coins in your pocket, purse or wallet, you\u2019re likely carrying around Pennsylvania-created art.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Mint produces coins in four cities: Denver, Philadelphia, San Francisco and West Point, New York. But the Philly location \u2014 located just a few blocks north of Independence Hall \u2014 is the Mint\u2019s hub for engraving, and employs a team of medallic artists who sculpt all the new designs for circulating coins, Congressional medals and collectible pieces.<\/p>\n
Yes, sculpts. The images in coins are three-dimensional and extremely detailed despite being only slightly raised.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a great challenge in making something in relief like this,\u201d said Phebe Hemphill, a medallic artist who\u2019s worked at the Mint since 2006. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a weird, fascinating challenge to fit everything into that very, very low space we\u2019re allowed to sculpt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hemphill, a Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumnus originally from West Chester, got some early experience working at the Franklin Mint, a private Delaware County-based company that produces coins and other collectibles. Her design and sculpting credits over her two decades at the U.S. Mint number in the dozens, from a Congressional Gold Medal presented to Tuskegee Airmen to a quarter depicting the Cuban American singer Celia Cruz.<\/p>\n
The coin sculpting process requires many \u201csmall technical nuances\u201d to create \u201cthe illusion of depth,\u201d said Eric David Custer, another medallic artist at the Mint. While medals allow for a bit more \u201cfreedom\u201d because they\u2019re larger, he said, coins like quarters are trickier. The sculpted image ends up being about as thick as \u201ctwo or three human hairs\u201d stacked on top of one another.<\/p>\n
Custer, who grew up in Independence Township in western Pennsylvania, did some of his early engraving work at Wendell August Forge, a Pennsylvania-based artisan metalware company. An alumnus of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh with a degree in industrial design, he joined the Mint in 2008 as a product designer and became a medallic artist in 2021.<\/p>\n
Custer and Hemphill are part of a small team of medallic artists that span a range of backgrounds and skillsets. One previously designed dinnerware and pottery, while another founded a community sculpture studio.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone that\u2019s arrived here has come from different avenues in art, sculpture, and manufacturing,\u201d said Custer.<\/p>\n
Since the first U.S. Mint was established in Philadelphia in 1792, the city has been the country\u2019s center for coin engraving, according to spokesperson Tim Grant. The Mint\u2019s headquarters moved to Washington, D.C., in the 1870s, but its engraving operation remained in Philly.<\/p>\n
Some notable names in sculpture, such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens, have designed coins for the Mint over the years \u2014 a history that isn\u2019t lost on the artists that work there now.<\/p>\n
\u201cA perk of this job and to have this position is that you know that the greats went before you here,\u201d Hemphill said.<\/p>\n
How coins are made<\/p>\n
The making of new coins and medals generally starts in Congress, which passes laws to authorize their creation.<\/p>\n
The Mint then outlines design standards, and taps staff artists and its pool of over two dozen freelancers from around the country to submit line drawings for consideration. The designs go through a robust revision and review process before one gets final approval from the U.S. Treasury secretary.<\/p>\n
From there, the in-house medallic artists take the selected line art drawing and sculpt it into three dimensions, which can involve adding more detail than what\u2019s in the sketch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sculptor has to make some decisions,\u201d Hemphill said. \u201cThey can\u2019t just solely take a design and, you know, make it look good as a coin. You have to enhance certain things.\u201d<\/p>\n
The completed artwork is then machine-engraved onto steel hubs, which are used to stamp dies that get used to strike coins. And once they enter circulation, the coins make their way to our pockets, jars, and couch crevices.<\/p>\n
Some medallic artists prefer to sculpt the designs by hand with clay or plaster on rounds that are about eight or nine inches in diameter, while others use software, Hemphill explained. She prefers to work by hand initially, then scan her work to make finishing touches digitally.<\/p>\n
The traditional approach \u201creally allows the sculptor to gauge the depth properly using your own binocular vision,\u201d Hemphill said, while digital tools make some \u201ccool tricks\u201d possible that \u201cyou wouldn\u2019t even imagine you could do in traditional.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of the methods used, the artistic process involves lots of constraints and \u201chard limits,\u201d Hemphill said.<\/p>\n
First, designs have to comply with the legislation that authorized them, which outlines required elements like the type of people or symbols the coins must depict, as well as phrases to include.<\/p>\n
In some cases, stakeholders named in the law that authorized a coin \u2014 which can mean governors, museums, or organizations relevant to the design \u2014 have to be consulted.<\/p>\n
Time is a factor too. After a design is approved, things can move pretty quickly to meet production schedules, with artists getting around 16 business days to translate a line drawing into a sculpture, according to Hemphill and Custer.<\/p>\n
And then there are medium-specific musts: Artists have to create designs that fit coins and medals. For example, certain angles don\u2019t work well in coin art, Custer said, and nickels, dimes, and quarters each have specific font size requirements.<\/p>\n
Production design staff also have to provide feedback to artists to make sure an image will be \u201cstrikable\u201d and won\u2019t result in manufacturing errors or inconsistencies, Custer explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cDesigning and sculpting \u2014 they\u2019re both problem-solving processes as much as they are art,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sculpting stories<\/p>\n
A medallic artist\u2019s job ultimately boils down to finding a way to translate iconic moments or people in history into pocket-sized art.<\/p>\n
In Philadelphia, one of the country\u2019s oldest and most storied cities, that history can be pretty accessible. When working on a new series of coins meant to honor the nation\u2019s 250th birthday, for instance, Custer drew on resources that are practically in the Mint\u2019s backyard.<\/p>\n
His background research for the new \u201cEmerging Liberty\u201d semiquincentennial dime led him to the Museum of the American Revolution, a 10-minute walk from the Mint.<\/p>\n
Custer\u2019s design for the tails side of the coin \u2014 which features an eagle with one empty claw and one claw holding 13 arrows \u2014 won out in the selection process.<\/p>\n
The image takes inspiration from the Great Seal of the United States, and represents the colonists before and during the American Revolution, Custer explained. While he included the arrows from the seal, he left out the olive branch to symbolize the fact that the colonies hadn\u2019t yet reached peace \u2014 but left the claw open to demonstrate that they were waiting for it.<\/p>\n
Hemphill also used the neighborhood to her advantage while working on the series. She sculpted the back of the \u201cU.S. Constitution Quarter,\u201d a design by Donna Weaver that features an image of Independence Hall.<\/p>\n
When translating a line drawing of a building to a three-dimensional coin, sculptors benefit from having additional visual context like a photograph to get the details right, Hemphill said. In this case, though, she didn\u2019t need a photo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a nice little walk down the street to really get a good gauge of how to do that one.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
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