The Queen's face is retiring from our coins. The B.C. artist behind the portrait isn't going anywhere

Susanna Blunt was born above a bank.

It was the 1940s, and her parents were working for HSBC in the northern Chinese city of Harbin, where executives were granted penthouse apartments.

It's a neat biographical detail that suggests the hand of destiny at work in the North Vancouver artist's life, guiding her to a career that has placed millions of copies of her work in every bank in Canada.

After two decades, Blunt's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II that has appeared on all Canadian coins will slowly begin disappearing from wallets, replaced by Steven Rosati's portrayal of King Charles III.

The Royal Canadian Mint says Blunt "holds a special place in history" as only the second Canadian artist to design a royal effigy for the country's coins.

But having her design chosen in 2002 was just one of many remarkable moments in Blunt's wild and wonderful career.

"Winning the coin competition was very nice. It looked good, of course, on my resume," Blunt recalled in a recent interview at her home in the Norgate neighbourhood of North Vancouver.

"Even recently, I was invited to go to Shanghai to an international symposium of coin designers from all over the world."

WATCH | Susanna Blunt's coin design rolls out in 2003:

Still, there is so much more to Susanna Blunt than a drawing on a coin.

The last six decades have seen Blunt cleaning house for Yoko Ono, painting portraits of Canada's upper crust, designing an optical illusion room at Vancouver's Science World and showing her sculptures, well into her golden years, at one of the most prestigious art exhibitions in the world.

After all this time — "you're not allowed to print my age," she says — she has no intention of retiring. The prospect of giving up on art is too grim to contemplate.

"It's your breath of life, it's your oxygen, and without it, you really are dead. I mean, what do people do? Play board games with their neighbour? Oh, I would rather be dead," she said.

Blunt's home is filled with pieces in every stage of completion — collages, prints and sculptures big and small. She works whenever she can find the time and energy, even when she's lying in bed.