Gary Taxali brings joy and style to the Royal Canadian Mint’s 2012 celebratory coin series
Melody Lau Jan 23, 2012 – 3:00 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 23, 2012 3:01 PM ET
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Royal Canadian Mint
Gary Taxali's wedding-themed quarter represents gender-neutral marriage.
Beavers, moose and maple leaves — these are the markers on our national currency that we’ve come to know and associate with our country’s identity. Gary Taxali will change that. The internationally renowned artist has teamed up with The Royal Canadian Mint for a series of six 2012 celebratory coins that promises to bring ice cream cones, tooth fairies and smiley faces to our quarters. When was the last time a moose on a quarter smiled at you?
The Toronto-based artist, whose resume spans from The New York Times and Rolling Stone to Converse and Levi’s, as well as a teaching position at OCAD, was contracted by the Royal Mint to design six coins, each reflecting a specific theme. Given complete artistic freedom, Taxali brought life to the themes of birthday, new baby, wedding, tooth fairy, O Canada and holiday.
“Creative freedom is kind of an understatement,” says Taxali. “It was easy, fluid, balanced and it was fun and collaborative. It was so much creative freedom that it got to the point where I was waiting for some higher-up to be like, ‘Oh, this is crazy, we can’t do that!’
“I’m sure it was hard for them to say ‘yeah’ because it’s a bit of a leap on their part since the themes in the past tended to be a bit on the conservative side, in terms of imagery. Mine are little whacky characters with their tongues sticking out. I didn’t feel once that I compromised myself, artistically.”
Beyond that, the Royal Mint allowed a few firsts: Taxali was allowed to imprint his initials on each coin and was also allowed to use his own font style called ‘Chumply’. In short, he got the “entire real estate.”
“It’s a dream job and every time I talk about it, the only word I can really describe is honour,” says Taxali. “It’s a huge, huge honour to be bestowed this kind of privilege and we came up with a really good representation of my work.”
The coin that Taxali is most proud of is the wedding-themed coin, featuring two intertwining rings that represent a gender-neutral marriage.
“I live in a country where gender is irrelevant and the coin has to represent that,” says Taxali. “I thought it would be a nice thing to represent that and to show two rings; is one a man and one a woman? Two men? Two women? It doesn’t matter what they are, they represent the union of two people.
“The Royal Mint really liked that idea because it represents the spirit of our nation and also, I think that it’s empowering to somebody and hopefully this calling will send a powerful message that we’re all the same and a wedding is a wedding. I think this is probably the first piece of currency in the world, paid by a federal government that is pro-wedding regardless of gender and that makes me really happy.”
The significance behind this, as Taxali explains, is not only commendable, on our country’s part, but also indicative of our identities outside of the conservative images of the wildlife and maple leaves.
“I think it says that our country is young and open-minded; I think that it says we’re cool!” says Taxali. “We’ve got something to say and maybe this is a bit of a benchmark, it says that we are our money and our stamps are a reflection of the citizens.”
In Taxali’s reflective modesty, he muses that this project could’ve been handed to many other artists and that he just lucked out as the first. He hopes that this will spark more future collaborations, though, as Canada’s booming with a bevy of talent.
“There are so many artists that would do so many amazing coins,” explains Taxali. “The stuff that we use is currency and the stuff that we use to represent Canadian symbols should be made by people who have different points of views and ideals because that’s what the country is comprised of.”
Posted in: Arts, Visual Art Tags: Gary Taxali, royal mint
Royal Canadian Mint
Gary Taxali's wedding-themed quarter represents gender-neutral marriage.
Beavers, moose and maple leaves — these are the markers on our national currency that we’ve come to know and associate with our country’s identity. Gary Taxali will change that. The internationally renowned artist has teamed up with The Royal Canadian Mint for a series of six 2012 celebratory coins that promises to bring ice cream cones, tooth fairies and smiley faces to our quarters. When was the last time a moose on a quarter smiled at you?
The Toronto-based artist, whose resume spans from The New York Times and Rolling Stone to Converse and Levi’s, as well as a teaching position at OCAD, was contracted by the Royal Mint to design six coins, each reflecting a specific theme. Given complete artistic freedom, Taxali brought life to the themes of birthday, new baby, wedding, tooth fairy, O Canada and holiday.
“Creative freedom is kind of an understatement,” says Taxali. “It was easy, fluid, balanced and it was fun and collaborative. It was so much creative freedom that it got to the point where I was waiting for some higher-up to be like, ‘Oh, this is crazy, we can’t do that!’
“I’m sure it was hard for them to say ‘yeah’ because it’s a bit of a leap on their part since the themes in the past tended to be a bit on the conservative side, in terms of imagery. Mine are little whacky characters with their tongues sticking out. I didn’t feel once that I compromised myself, artistically.”
Beyond that, the Royal Mint allowed a few firsts: Taxali was allowed to imprint his initials on each coin and was also allowed to use his own font style called ‘Chumply’. In short, he got the “entire real estate.”
“It’s a dream job and every time I talk about it, the only word I can really describe is honour,” says Taxali. “It’s a huge, huge honour to be bestowed this kind of privilege and we came up with a really good representation of my work.”
The coin that Taxali is most proud of is the wedding-themed coin, featuring two intertwining rings that represent a gender-neutral marriage.
“I live in a country where gender is irrelevant and the coin has to represent that,” says Taxali. “I thought it would be a nice thing to represent that and to show two rings; is one a man and one a woman? Two men? Two women? It doesn’t matter what they are, they represent the union of two people.
“The Royal Mint really liked that idea because it represents the spirit of our nation and also, I think that it’s empowering to somebody and hopefully this calling will send a powerful message that we’re all the same and a wedding is a wedding. I think this is probably the first piece of currency in the world, paid by a federal government that is pro-wedding regardless of gender and that makes me really happy.”
The significance behind this, as Taxali explains, is not only commendable, on our country’s part, but also indicative of our identities outside of the conservative images of the wildlife and maple leaves.
“I think it says that our country is young and open-minded; I think that it says we’re cool!” says Taxali. “We’ve got something to say and maybe this is a bit of a benchmark, it says that we are our money and our stamps are a reflection of the citizens.”
In Taxali’s reflective modesty, he muses that this project could’ve been handed to many other artists and that he just lucked out as the first. He hopes that this will spark more future collaborations, though, as Canada’s booming with a bevy of talent.
“There are so many artists that would do so many amazing coins,” explains Taxali. “The stuff that we use is currency and the stuff that we use to represent Canadian symbols should be made by people who have different points of views and ideals because that’s what the country is comprised of.”
Posted in: Arts, Visual Art Tags: Gary Taxali, royal mint
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