Welcome to the One World Wallet Initiative. First of all, I have always been keenly aware that art i…

[Jon]

Welcome to the One World Wallet Initiative. First of all, I have always been keenly aware that art is a way to heal. I do my "Cosmos" series to calm and center myself as a form of healing. This work tends to help center other people also. Here is an image of a "Cosmos" piece.

I have seen art bring many different types of people and cultures together as a way to create a sense of community. Building community in a positive way certainly has a healing effect.

This idea of utilizing a hand-made Duct-tape wallet began to take affect with me almost as soon as Haydn and I began discussing it.

I am interested here in not only the healing aspect of a global art project but also to understand why we specifically remember interactions that happen with these wallets.

A wallet is what connects us to commerce.
Our currency exchanges and business transactions take place while using a wallet.
There is an intrinsic part of the wallet and we want to explore here.
The underlying part is of course cerebral.

After having accomplished over 3000 of these hand-made wallets, I have come to realize so many people have such specific information they remember while using these wallets. There is almost always something the users want to tell me about. Could it be the amazing colors and textures of duct-tape that causes these interactions?

This makes me quite curious.

I understand that much of this is a cerebral connection to things that excite us or get our blood flowing and draws out specifically remembered information. Where, what, who, when?

When people recollect their childhood, they are more apt to remember specific events if they were exciting. Seems that the banality of regular life at a younger age is not as well remembered and almost never specifically.

This is the curious part of "One World Wallet Initiative" for me. I have worked with the idea of memory and remembrance before with my "Memory Clothing," an on-going series taking surrendered garments, and hand-sewing them into miniatures of themselves. These memories and emotions from this series is what is prodding me to further this exploration of emotional currency.
Here is an installation image of "Memory Clothing."

Utilizing memory and remembrance with this "One World Wallet Initiative" allows me to further explore these ideas plus others concerning commerce and money changing hands. This will certainly be a catalyst for future work dealing these specific issues.

Let me know your thoughts. I hope you join us in this worthwhile global project.

Best ever,

jon

[Haydn Shaughnessy]

Jon, you know memory clothing is one of the most amazing projects. I hope you reach those heights with the wallet project too.

[Jon]

As I was just telling Mark Beam, our newest member, I feel this initiative is bringing together people who are like minded and will influence what is currently going on in the world. This sort of consciousness is starting to play out into a more responsible environmental role model of how we need to see beyond the hype and understand the real issues at hand. This is my hope so I thank everyone for being here.