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The Wallets

Since 2000, The Wallets has served as an evolving record of my life—a series of yearly companions that double as sculptural works and performance artifacts. Each year begins with the same clean, black wallet—a blank slate, identical in form yet destined to evolve into something entirely unique. Over the months, the wallet becomes a living canvas, plastered with stickers, street slap art, and the accumulated residue of experience. These objects are simultaneously personal relics and collective documents, bearing the marks of time, place, and interaction.

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The wallet, a quintessential item in the lives of men, is both a vessel of utility and a symbol of identity. It carries our most vital tokens: money, identification, and artifacts of daily exchange. For many, it represents a tether to the material world—a portable archive of transactions, moments, and intentions. Yet in The Wallets, the item transcends its traditional role, becoming a diary without words, imbued with the spirit of its year and its keeper.

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Historically, the wallet’s lineage traces back to leather pouches used in ancient trade—a symbol of wealth, power, and agency. Over time, it has become a deeply personal object, reflecting its owner’s habits, values, and even secrets. In occult traditions, the exchange of money is charged with energetic and spiritual significance, often seen as a form of ritual offering or transfer of power. A wallet, as the keeper of such exchanges, becomes a totemic object—a repository of energies tied to prosperity, survival, and desire.

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Within my practice, these wallets serve not only as artifacts of personal history but also as sculptural relics charged with the weight of time and human interaction. They are simultaneously intimate and public, drawing connections between the private ritual of carrying and the external impact of urban art and street culture.

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The Wallets invites viewers to consider the mundane object as a sacred vessel, rich with memory and mystery. Each wallet is a year encapsulated—a personal history rendered visible, tangible, and enduring. And for a few, lost somewhere in time.

Artists Wallet 2000

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2000

0001-WAL-2000

Artists Wallet 2005

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2005

0001-WAL-2005

Artists Wallet 2008

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2008

0001-WAL-2008

Artists Wallet 2011

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2011

0001-WAL-2011

Artists Wallet 2014

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2014

0001-WAL-2014

Artists Wallet 2017

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2017

0001-WAL-2017

Artists Wallet 2020

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2020

0001-WAL-2020

Artists Wallet 2023

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2023

0001-WAL-2023

Artists Wallet 2002

Mixed media on wallet

3.5 x 4.25 in / 8.9 x 10.8 cm

2002

0001-WAL-2002

Artists Wallet 2006

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2006

0001-WAL-2006

Artists Wallet 2009

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2009

0001-WAL-2009

Artists Wallet 2012

Mixed media on wallet

3.5 x 4.25 in / 8.9 x 10.8 cm

2012

0001-WAL-2012

Artists Wallet 2015

Mixed media on wallet

3.5 x 4.25 in / 8.9 x 10.8 cm

2015

0001-WAL-2015

Artists Wallet 2018

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2018

0001-WAL-2018

Artists Wallet 2021

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2021

0001-WAL-2021

Artists Wallet 2004

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2004

0001-WAL-2004

Artists Wallet 2007

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2007

0001-WAL-2007

Artists Wallet 2010

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2010

0001-WAL-2010

Artists Wallet 2013

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2013

0001-WAL-2013

Artists Wallet 2016

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2016

0001-WAL-2016

Artists Wallet 2019

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2019

0001-WAL-2019

Artists Wallet 2022

Mixed media on wallet

4.25 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.9 cm

2022

0001-WAL-2022

© 1977-2025 Copyright | Thomas Arthur Schaefer | All Rights Reserved

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