Penny the Goose
-UPCOMING-
Artist: Mr. & Mrs. Ferguson
Website
Location: Lake Merced Parking Lot, San Francisco, CA
Partners: SF Rec & Park, Building 180
Photo credits: Render by Building 180; artists headshot by David Hill
Penny the Goose is a 16-foot-tall, 19-foot-wide Canada goose, her form entirely composed of 120,000 pennies meticulously laid into concrete. Her feathers are surfaced with U.S. and Canadian pennies: two currencies, two identities, meeting in a single body.
Originally conceived as a flat installation using only Canadian pennies, Penny has since evolved into a fully three-dimensional sculpture, expanding both in scale and meaning. Built through the collective effort of a small, dedicated team and a wider circle of contributors, the work carries the imprint of many hands.
At Lake Merced, where real geese gather and migrate, Penny becomes both familiar and uncanny. She reflects on value and what we assign to it, what we overlook; and invites us to consider the quiet power of accumulation, transformation, and collective contribution.
About the Artist
Mr. & Mrs. Ferguson are a collaborative artist duo whose work explores material experimentation, storytelling, and the intersection of industrial craft and visual narrative. Their practice is rooted in a shared commitment to learning through making, combining decades of experience across cinematography, welding, fabrication, and performance. Their projects reflect a deep curiosity about process, blending technical precision with creative expression to create works that are both structurally rigorous and conceptually engaging.
Lisa Ferguson is a freelance cinematographer with over 35 years of experience shooting and directing documentary, lifestyle, and reality programming. Her work spans network and cable television, film festivals, and corporate clients. Her background in visual storytelling informs the duo’s artistic approach, bringing a strong sense of composition, narrative, and human connection to their work.
Robert Ferguson is the president of Ferguson Welding Service, a family business founded by his father. His company has contributed to major infrastructure projects, including pipeline systems for water districts, Caltrans projects, Tesla, and the Chase Center in San Francisco. In addition to his fabrication expertise, Robert has a background in theatre, where he built sets and performed in numerous productions across the Bay Area. He holds a degree in journalism and has worked as a radio news reporter and on-air DJ, contributing a multidisciplinary perspective to the duo’s work.