Penny the Goose
A New Version Of This Loved Goose Returns to Burning Man for 2026
Penny the Goose was our premiere Burning Man project in 2013 in which we experimented with the whimsical penny. We tiled thousands of them to look like feathers on the back of a steel, Canada goose body which we fabricated. The pennies were of Canadian denomination as that country had just finished minting and circulating them. The response to our sculpture was encouraging and we returned it to 2015’s Burning Man, this time with the front side covered with U.S. pennies. Penny the Goose would be a symbol of the two countries’ shared relationship and shared home for the migratory Canada goose.
After Burning Man, ‘Penny’ was given a home in front of a medical clinic in Lucerne, California where the goose would be a symbol of hope to residents of a community that had been harshly affected to by wildfires in 2015. We learned from our 6 year exhibition that the technique in using epoxies for gluing the coins to a steel frame was not going to last for the long term, so in 2021 we brought it back to our shop for a rebuild. Our goal in this rebuild is to re-use the over 120,000 donated pennies that were on the structure. After cleaning, they will be placed back onto the goose body using our technique in placing pennies into concrete cement, which is what we use for our bear, eagle and bee sculptures. A technique that has proven to last for years and likely for decades to come. We shall also be employing our new methods with colored concrete and shapes.
Penny the Goose was a 2015 Burning Man Arts honoraria project and is again for 2026. Most of the donated pennies in the project came from the Burning Man community, friends and family. Returning will be our team of patient penny laying volunteers.
