I did the first official Clown Dollar in 1997. On May 4th, 1997 my Money Art was born. The first Clown Dollar was “Silly the Clown” and the next clown I painted was “Dinky the Clown”. Clown Town was born that afternoon in May. To the best of my recollection I remembered doodling a clown on a dollar back in late 1995, but it was not painted or done as art. It was just a spoof on value at the time. I did a few over then next year and a half, but one day I was painting with a friends daughter who was 4 at the time she always called me Silly the Clown, so magic happened and just grew from there.

 

Over the next two months from May - Jury 1997. I painted several Clown Dollars. I then stopped painting them till April 1998. I did several paintings over the next few months. And I painted Clown Dollars on and off till early 1999. At that time the first set of 12 Clown Dollar prints was being released. On March 15th, 1999, my first Dollar Art project was published. I had paintings picked out for the series #2 of the Clown Dollars, but that never came about.

Then one day when I was looking at the painting, the clowns were looking back at me. They were paintings of my friends and clowns I know. They were looking at me telling me to tell people who they are. So the story and characters of “Clown Town”. Was created.

 

 

While I was painting the Clown Dollars, I really enjoyed painting, but I was loosing the spark. I liked the Clown Dollars and story line, but I knew there was more to what I could do and wanted to do. I was always looking at the boarder for the dollar bill and especially on the 2 dollar bill it is beautiful. I kept seeing it as a frame for a beautiful landscape. I had been thinking of this for a few months, but never did any paintings. Finally in June 2000, I made my real dream come true and painted my first Landscape Dollar. It did not come out that good. The Clown Dollar’s were painted with watercolors painted thick and for the Landscapes I was using acrylic paints. So when I did the next 2 or so I got used to working with the paints. Now this is where I feel my first Fine Art Dollars were born.

 

 

 Shortly after starting my Landscape Dollars i again started to think where can i go with this. I thought the paintings were finally fine art ( whatever that is LOL ) . But again they were missing something. In September on 2000 i did my first Landscape with a Silhouette of 2 Elephants and reflection in the water. I mean its really hard to thinkn of a dollar as a canvas. I am not the greatest painter out there, but to paint on a dollar is about doing 2 paintings that are 2” x2”. That’s the easiest way i can say it. So after doing a few silhouette paintings i again thought what else. So i did a painting with Whinnie the Pooh for a friend. Then it just agian grew from there. Now i finally felt like it has come from first a joke and spoof to art. So from 5 / 1997 - 10 / 2000my art has progressed and grown into the art of today.