Michael Worthington has over 400 paintings incorporating found heads-up pennies.
By Michael Worthington
December, 1999. Holiday time in NYC. Unemployed while in the music business, I was walking home one evening when I noticed a fair amount of change on the sidewalks.
It caught my attention that in a city so wealthy, some could drop money and not care, and others had nothing.
From this came the idea of the Lucky Penny Paintings.
I started picking up heads-up pennies–the lucky kind. I wrap the penny in a tiny envelope and label it with location and date found.
Each penny becomes a 4”x 4” acrylic painting, the size working proportionally to the penny.
![Michael Worthington Chinatown NYC](https://i0.wp.com/the-art-of-autism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ChinatownNYC.jpg?resize=770%2C773&ssl=1)
You can cup the Lucky Penny Painting in two hands, much like a retablo, with the energy of the penny radiating outward. The painting reflects the location, history of the area and my relationship to it.
![Michael Worthington "Lollypop Building NYC"](https://i0.wp.com/the-art-of-autism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/LollypopBuildingNYC.jpg?resize=770%2C771&ssl=1)
The sides of the painting are labeled with the location and date found, and the number on the front is the order in which the penny was picked up.
![Painted Sides of Paintings](https://i0.wp.com/the-art-of-autism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Sides.jpg?resize=770%2C766&ssl=1)
I have found over four hundred pennies during the twenty-one years I’ve worked on this project, from all over the US, Canada, UK, Mexico, Iceland, Nicaragua, China, Cambodia, Barbados and more.
![Michael Worthington Bowery NYC](https://i0.wp.com/the-art-of-autism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/BoweryNYC.jpg?resize=770%2C764&ssl=1)
I have shown the paintings in group and solo shows, and hope to have a book out in the not too distant future.
My mother, who put music and art in my hands as a child, often told me I “marched to a different drummer.” Others thought me quirky. The music business was a place where quirky could be successful, and I found I was able to work the room even though I didn’t want to be in the room. Art was always a refuge, a place where I could be alone for hours.
My neurodiversity was diagnosed 10 years ago, at age 54. This new understanding helped give me some context about my past, and possibly a better understanding of myself moving forward.
My work can be found on Instagram @luckypennypaintings.