The 2024 Celia Cruz quarter was made in Philadelphia

Phebe Hemphill has been molding history for nearly 20 years. As a medallic artist at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, Hemphill has crafted the portraits and landscapes adorning countless coins, from Congressional Gold Medals to commemorative coins. Her designs mark legacies across generations, from activists Harriet Tubman and Alice Paul to Presidents Barack Obama and Calvin Coolidge, all memorialized in metal.

This year she focused on a new coin to honor another American legend: Celia Cruz, the late Afro Cuban superstar known as the Queen of Salsa.

Born in Havana in 1925, Cruz became a singular voice in Afro Cuban music with beloved hits like “La Negra Tiene Tumbao,” “La Vida Es Un Carnaval,” “Bemba Colorá,” and “Quimbara.”

Cruz immigrated to the U.S. in 1961 following the Cuban Revolution and lived for decades in Fort Lee, N.J., as she went on to sell more than 10 million records. Spanning nearly 60 years, her Grammy-winning career included collaborations with Latin music stars Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheco, and Ray Barretto. And she coined the unforgettable catchphrase, “Azúcar!” which Hemphill made sure to include in her commemorative quarter design.

Cruz has previously been honored on a U.S. postage stamp and two of her dresses are in the collections of the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.

For the quarter — part of the U.S. Mint’s American Women Quarters program — Hemphill depicted Cruz in her ruffly Cuban Rumba dress and large earrings with a mic in one hand and the other extending, as if to invite viewers to dance.

Hemphill started with a model coin eight inches in diameter. Her process combines the traditional methods of clay and plaster with a contemporary digital software that allows for more precision.

“I sculpted the main body, the hands, and, for the most part, the dress in the traditional clay and plaster, but when it comes to the details on the dress — the ribbon, the lace edging — that was all done in the digital software,” Hemphill said. “I wanted to create a design that would convey her spirit and her joy while performing. It was a tough assignment.”

Raised in West Chester and based in Oaklyn, Hemphill comes from a long line of sculptors, who inspired her to study the craft at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Her great-great-aunt studied with famous Irish American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who made several monuments to historic figures as well as coins.

After PAFA, Hemphill made porcelain figurines for Delaware County’s Franklin Mint before taking up toy sculpting at McFarlane Toys in Bloomingdale, N.J. At the Mint, she’s one of a handful of medallic artists responsible for dozens of coin designs each year.

Hemphill had been unfamiliar with Cruz’s music, so she researched Cruz’s life and watched hours of YouTube videos of her performances before conceptualizing the coin design. U.S. Mint chief engraver Joseph Menna approved the design, before sending it to two Congressional committees for approval. Then the coin presses got to work creating thousands of quarters; the Cruz quarters began circulating in August.

Today the quarter has been celebrated as the first instance of an Afro Latina featured on U.S. currency. It’s also become a bit of a collector’s item: Some Cuban fans in Miami have been keeping the coin as a good-luck charm, even turning it into jewelry.

The quarters are available for purchase on the U.S. Mint website.