No clowning around

Penney has been a clown since birth."The clown came out when I was born," said the Colfax resident. "It just took me about 22 years to figure it out."From childhood through her teen years, Penney chose to wear a mixture of plaids and prints."My mother, who let me dress myself, would say 'you look ridiculous," she said.Nor could she resist staging performances – song and dance routines or comedy shows – whenever friends came over. "Growing up there were two things I wanted to be: an artist and a performer," she said.In high school, she participated in music and theater productions as well as studied art. Afterward, she spent two semesters at the Academy of Art in San Francisco."I got my hands into everything – printmaking, sculpture, figure and line drawing," she said, adding she had numerous commissions for commercial artwork. As a result, she doesn't have any of her own artwork. It's all in private collections. In the early 1990s, she began doing face painting and glamour make-up for her classmates. "A lot of people wanted to have their faces painted for productions and talent shows," she said. "One time a girlfriend wanted to be KISS, so she had me do her make up." In 1993, while performing with a burlesque-style show in San Francisco, the clown performers fascinated Penney. It was at that point she realized her life's ambition – to become a professional clown.She began assembling a costume and decided on the name Penney the Clown. She even asked her family and friends to use that name instead of her given name. Even now she prefers not to reveal her legal name."I don't want people to use my name in front of kids," she said. "It blows my cover." While attending circus school, Penney gathered a number of skills like acrobatics and juggling ("that didn't pan out"). However, she gained the most confidence from improvisation classes, but even more by hanging out with other clowns.In the past 18 years, she has created about 150 costumes – many she has sewn herself, while others have been created from items purchased at vintage or Indian clothing stores. "A lot are mix and match," she said. "Some pieces can be used with other costumes."In fact, she estimates more than 1,000 possible costumes fill the second bedroom of her Colfax home.The costumes range from the mundane (a space alien) to a very specific period costume, a British Colonial Turn of the Century Indian teaching Bocce. "That one was for a big company party," she explained, adding she really had to get into character – from mannerisms to language. Her favorite character, though, is appearing as a pirate. "I feel like I'm at my funniest when I'm a pirate. I love the pirate talk. I can get really improvie," she said. "I especially love doing and saying stuff to make the grown-ups laugh. It might go over the kids' heads, but they'll still laugh because the grown-ups are laughing."While in the Bay Area, Penney would do as many as five shows in a day. That sometimes meant changing in her car or stopping at a public restroom to switch identities."There's some serious organization required to be a clown," she laughed. Since each costume has its own accessories, wigs and shoes, she could leave home with as many as five suitcases.By the time she and her husband left the Bay area in March, Penney had received both local and international recognition.In 1997, she was named Best Entertainer in San Francisco Magazine's Best of the Best edition. She also won first place in the International Face and Body Art International competition held in San Francisco.And yet, Penney yearned to return to the foothills.As a youth, she had spent eight summers at the Campfire camp on Lake Vera in Nevada City. "When I started getting older, I started to pine – no pun intended – for this area," she explained. "Then I realized it is not just a fantasy place. I could actually come up here."After holding their wedding at Camp Augusta in Nevada City, the couple began seriously thinking about relocating to the foothills.While she still returns to the Bay Area for events, Penney believes the move has provided her with an opportunity to grow as a performer, blending her face painting with acting and storytelling. "It's just opening my mind up to different possibilities," she said. "It's an opportunity to try new things."For more information, visit www.penneytheclown.com.