How did this project start? What was the genesis?
The project started out when I was planning on submitting a piece to Splendorporium’s yearly Tarot art show. I had done it a couple of years prior, and in the first show they had asked us to draw a card — we had a big ceremony, and everyone drew a card, and that’s what you had to illustrate. Well, this time they were just leaving it up to us and I decided, you know, I liked the ceremony of that, so I went ahead and I drew a card. And the first card I drew was the Chariot. And the imagery from the Chariot is right now, in absence of a logo and such — a brand for the deck. Because it’s so powerful, the energy of that card, and that illustration. So I started working on this, and I was at the time, — I do a lot of digital work, I really enjoy digital work, so that’s kind of my strength. But I’ve been painting more because I wanted to get away from the computer a bit.
So I was on the fence about whether or not I was going to paint this or do something digital. But I decided that I painted something last time, I’ll do something digital this time.
So when I was thinking about illustrating the Chariot, I decided I didn’t want to just do something arbitrary, or do something that was just according to the traditional Rider-Waite imagery. What I wanted to do was get — basically find some way to translate the card’s images in a way that was relevant to something in my life or somebody I knew, because I would need a model for this.
So I thought about it, and I thought, ‘You know, wouldn’t it be cool to illustrate this card as a kind of totem for the person that is in the piece.’ Perhaps it represents something about them, or something that they’re stepping into or becoming, and so I thought of my friend Cynthia, who is a filmmaker. And she has been for the last year working really closely with her co-producer, Juvie Hall, on “Flat Track Around the World”. She was really moving from a place of just doing video projects for individuals to creating more documentaries. She had been doing that before, but the energy was shifting. And she was stepping into more of a producer role. This is something that was really important for her at the time. So I thought, ‘You know, wouldn’t it be cool to illustrate that process that she’s going through to say something about the energy of this time that she’s experiencing, where she’s making this transition and things are starting to fall into place automatically? Kind of a Chariot energy.’
So I asked her if she’d be willing to be in the card, because Cynthia and I are really good friends, and we’ve done Tarot readings for each other for years now. We are Tarot buddies, in addition to being buddies in a lot of other ways. And so I asked her and she thought that it would be great fun, and so she conceded to participate. And so we went and shot photos over at Cathedral Park, near my studio, and we had a great time getting all the photography together for the car and playing with the symbology. She brought her car, her car is an old blue Mercedes. It is her chariot, that was the other piece of it. She has her dog Charlie, which is funny because the card is The Chariot, and Charlie’s actually taking the place of the usual sphinxes and underneath the St. Johns bridge, which goes over Cathedral Park, it’s kind of got a very spiritual quality. So we had a lot of fun shooting this and trying to play with the imagery there.
And so this image, I was having fun creating it. The show hadn’t come up yet, I was still working on it. I was sitting at Cynthia’s kitchen table and she said to me out of the blue, “If you got a million dollars, and you could spend all of your time working on a Tarot deck, would you do it?” I was like, “Yeah! Hell yes! Of course I’d do it!” Then she said, “Ok. Now, would you miss anything?” And of course — miss anything else, like my work. And of course I love my work, and there would probably be a part of me that would miss it, but I guess — I was thinking more about what she was really trying to say was, If you could really focus on this and make it amazing, would you do it?
And that was an interesting insight. But then I kept working and then she interrupted me again. And she said, “You should do a Portland deck!” And I thought, “Wow, that is a fantastic idea! Too bad it’s so hard to make a Tarot deck.”
Because it felt very Portland. I think that we were talking about how, the imagery and the card had a very Portland feeling to it. I don’t even remember exactly if there was anything that kind of led up to that. Or if she just kind of had the idea out of the blue, which I’m inclined to think perhaps she did.
And it did, it resonated really strongly. Portland and Tarot, they feel energetically similar. They’re both subversive, they’re both kind of go against the grain. Independent. I see Tarot as something that people who are very independent use to try to make their own decisions about their lives, if they do a Tarot reading for themselves. So it seemed to fit really well.
But I wasn’t sold. Because it’s a lot of work, and I didn’t know how I’d make the time. It just didn’t seem logically viable. So I went and did the art show, and I was doing Tarot readings for people at the show. And I had put my piece up, and there were a lot of beautiful paintings and drawings. I didn’t think much of my piece, cause I just figure everyone’s tired of digital art these days, so I didn’t think anyone was going to care one way or another. I’m doing Tarot readings, and people are asking me, ‘So, do you have a piece in the show?’ and I’d … point over at mine, and they’d say, “That’s my favorite!”
And I had that happen over and over and over again that night — “That’s my favorite.” And so here I am, thinking mine would be the least noticed, and I was getting a lot of attention. No one bought it, but…
I kind of settled into that over the next couple days and I thought, People really like it. I really do want to make a Tarot deck. And when you’re going to spend that much time on artwork, you want to know that it has an audience, that people are going to care about it. Otherwise, I could do it just for myself, but I would rather spend — I would love to make that much art, but I would probably spend it on other things that I had planned to do before.
And so this kind of had a mojo from the beginning, and I thought, ‘I would love it and it would be nice to know that people would actually like something like that.’ Well, I didn’t think about it too hard yet, because I’m still in that amorphous I’m not sure phase. I’d kind of decided, ok, I’m going to do a Tarot deck. And I think I’d actually even posted a Facebook post about it. I said, “Here I go everybody. I’m going to make a Tarot deck in a year.” Because I like to make public declarations cause it kind of holds you accountable. And I don’t know why I did that, and there’s no possible way I could do it in a year, but it was a good one to make. But I wasn’t even on the inside totally firm on that. But I started talking about it as if it was a thing that was really going to happen. And I went to a craft night with a bunch of friends, I ran into some friends, and I just started talking about it and I showed my piece around on my phone, and everyone loved it. It was happening again. I thought, Well, gee, people really want this to happen! By the end of the night I was kind of on the hook to do a salon for a guy there in the craft night, he runs a monthly salon in his apartment on Foster so I thought, I could do that. I could do a salon, like a little art show. So now I was on the hook to make art.
And it took me a little while to get around to that, but the more I got into thinking about it, the more serious I was. And so when January came around, I thought, Ok well, this is happening. It’s time to schedule some photo shoots. And then that was it. Then it was really real. I was actually scheduling photo shoots.
I wasn’t totally — I was sure, and then I was extra sure the more people responded to what I had. It wasn’t just a few friends, it was — there was some interest there. It had some energy, it had mojo. People were excited about it. So I thought, Ok. If I want to do this…I want it to be something that I can — it can feed my soul, it can be something out in the world that people will appreciate. So I thought, ok, well then it’s absolutely worth it to do it then, I’m not just doing it for myself.
Why do you think people responded so strongly to a Tarot project in particular?
Tarot has its own allure, and I think that even people who aren’t actually superstitious or woo-woo will resonate will Tarot just because it’s so interesting and intricate. It sparks people’s imaginations, so I think that even if people don’t know you as an artist they can go, I like your work in the context of Tarot, and I know what Tarot’s about, basically, so I can really picture that. I want to see what you’re going to do with this icon or this icon or this symbol. I don’t know — it’s like people never get tired of Tarot. I don’t think they ever get tired of it, there’s always something new to discover about Tarot, so it’s like fan fiction in that way.
It seems like there’s a lot of room for interpretation with each card – like a form of literary criticism, say.
There’s that — you get the most interesting, juicy stuff out of limitations or frameworks. Because if you are open-ended, you can do anything and everything and it actually makes it kind of hard to land on something to figure out, ok, well what’s the common theme in the work? And so Tarot, I mean, it’s a big, wide world in and of itself. But I’m working on the hierophant card, there are certain concepts associated with that I can decide deliberately to go with them, or try to do a new slant on them, or go against them entirely, or whatever. But it’s still the hierophant card, that is the funnel through which I’m doing something. But even then it’s like, ok, well what’s the art style? What’s the special thing about this deck? Portland was just a nice crossover because it fit, to me, conceptually. But then it provides this wonderful world of whimsy and creativity and — I don’t know, it’s saucy. It’s got great attitude.
The deck seems to rise above Portland stereotypes, to embrace a kind of Portland mythology.
Yes! Portland has its own mythology.
Part of what I’m doing with my deck is, it’s real people that live in Portland and they have all different personalities and walks of life and things that they care about. And in some way, they’re very essentially Portland, each one of them so far that I’ve done. But they’re very different, and I have no qualms about channeling a bit of that person into the card because of the fact that something about them resonated with me for the meaning of the card anyway. And so adding a little bit of their story into it, well, what’s more Portland than that? And everyone is so unique, everyone has a story, everyone has special qualities and energy. I guess I feel that that’s something that’s different from most other Tarot decks that incorporate real people into the deck: most of them are, it’s all abstracted, it’s all meant to look pretty and artful, you don’t see something of the person in it.
There are exceptions — I just recently was acquainted with Robert Scott, who does the Urban Tarot, which is a New York Tarot deck. Here I was, thinking, I’m the only one who’s done this! And I thought it was very unique. And then I happened to find his Kickstarter actually pretty recently, and his artwork is great. And I feel like he does capture something of people as well. But I don’t see many other decks that are doing that part of it, letting the personality of the cast member, the actor, if you will, be kind of more of a star in it in terms of their own personality and their own quirks. So that’s a fun part of it too, and I think that that is a very Portland concept. It’s probably a very New York concept too — individuality.
What is your process for selecting, or “casting,” a person for each card?
The general method for that is, I think about the card and I might have something that I feel drawn to say about the card. And so I’ll think about, or meditate on, or feel out, I should say, because sometimes I don’t think that hard about it, it’s more of a feeling thing — who I might know that fits in the energy of what the card is about. I can try to see things that are happening in their life at the time that’s aligning with it, or things that have happened or just things that they’re passionate about or care about that might align with the card. And then if I don’t know anybody that is quite fits with what I’m trying to capture, then I’ll reach out to people and kind of question if I get offered some people, talk to them, get a sense of how well they might fit with it.
It might be something as general as, I want something like for Cynthia, someone who’s stepping into this flow of the universe is just supporting them and carrying them on the river, and it’s effortless. But it’s a result of a very deliberate decision to be in that flow, to play with oxymorons, play with the oxymoron of pushing forward, yet staying still, those kinds of things are more generic.
But then you have for my hierophant card, I was looking for a male figure. I needed someone who was a person who I felt an appeal towards both the worlds of science and the world of spirit. Because there was something I wanted to say in the hierophant card that was — I think about study and I think about having structure to execute your study and your refinement of your learning. And the hierophant is traditionally a bishop kind of figure, and I wanted to go somewhere else with it. I didn’t really want any religious iconography in that particular card, I wanted to play with modern ideas.
So I reached out to my circle and I said, “Does anyone know a person like this?” and a friend of mine connected me with, she said, “Well, what do you think about a medical intuitive, healer person?” And I thought, “Well, yeah, that would work” and she introduced me to this gentleman, Dave Markowitz, and he was really awesome and we — I mean, I messaged him on Facebook and within an hour I believe, we were chatting back and forth, and we were totally hitting it off, we were totally on the same wavelength. And then the funny thing was, I was like, “What do you think about using kind of Carl Sagan as inspiration for this?” And people who are purely scientists who love Carl Sagan would totally like, roll in their grave about that, but still, I feel like Carl Sagan does have a sense of wonder and kind of a spiritual attitude, even though he is a scientist. And so I thought, “What if we draw on symbols that would be costuming and things that would be associated with Carl Sagan?” and he was like, “Yeah, I’m down with that!” and then — I don’t know if it was a couple hours later or the next morning, he sends me a message saying, “Guess what I just saw in my Facebook feed?” And it was a picture of Carl Sagan in the very same blazer outfit we were talking about putting him in, with a quote that was directly relevant to the conversation we had had about what we wanted this symbology of the card to be, the meaning to be.
It was about being open-minded. I’d have to look it up. I just remember being bowled over about it, because I was like, “Wow. That is just what we had been talking about.” So it was a little message like, Hey! The Universe is saying, Yeah! This is totally the way to go! And that’s kind of the way things tend to go. There’s a general approach I start with, which is maybe I have an idea, maybe I don’t. Maybe I just know that someone aligns with the energy of the card, I interview them, I talk to them, I’m like, What do you think about this card? How do you feel you relate to it? And I do that with everybody. Some people I kind of start with that. If I know that they’re the right fit, but I don’t know how yet, I’ll just let them talk to me about their story, what they feel connects them to that card.
In the beginning I would more often ask people that I knew who wanted to be in the deck, I’d say, “What card do you align with? Do you feel a resonance with a card?” And I don’t do that as much, because I’m running out of cards and people can’t have their first choices. So I just try to fit them up with stuff if I can, and then see if they connect with it in any way. And if they don’t, then we try something else, or maybe it doesn’t work out.
The way I started it with Death was, my friend and assistant Brooke, I wanted her to be in the deck. And she’s like, “Ok. Can I be Death? Because I love Death. Death shows up in my life all the time” and when she says Death, she means, like, transformation, regeneration, the concepts of the Death Tarot card. And that was funny too, because I’d thought, Who the hell am I going to find who wants to be Death? And here she is, she’s like, “I would love to be Death!” and then I said, “What do you think about riding a unicorn? How do you feel about that?” I just had this image of Death on a unicorn. She’s like, “Are you kidding me? I am obsessed with this image of a unicorn puking up a rainbow!” it was really funny. Of course, I won’t do that part, but that was like part of her personal mythos, the unicorn was actually in there, and so that was pretty hilarious how that worked out. I thought, Well, I guess you don’t mind being on a unicorn, that’s awesome… And that was even crazy too, because we’re in the middle of a photo shoot, and she had this amazing idea. She’s like, “What do you think about me wearing candy skull makeup?” And I thought about it a second, and I was like, ‘Wow, that would be so perfect.’ And so I’m looking at my watch, I have somewhere to be in an hour and a half, and I would’ve finished the photo shoot well in advance of that event, but I went, ‘You know what? This is so perfect, we have to do it. It will take a long time.’ So I texted my friend and I was like, I’m gonna be very late. I didn’t have any face paint, I had acrylic paint, and I pulled it out, painted Brooke’s face, it took me like an hour and a half. She stood very, very still so the paint wouldn’t crack. It turned out incredible. And it was — I mean, a lot of fun. But it was the perfect thing — candy skull make-up, of course. Day of the Dead, with Death, perfect.
These are the little synchronicities that happen in the process, where someone has this amazing idea and I try to always stay open. Part of my process is, I’ve got to keep my antennae open. The information that I need to make an image incredible — it doesn’t just come from an idea I have. Sometimes I do, I just get a download, and I’m like, oh, this is exactly what I need to do, and now I need to find someone who fits with that. But it’s a combination of people giving me their input and their personal resonance with the card, their personal story, and then in the process being open to other people’s ideas in the flow. Because they’ll come up with stuff, we’re all like a conduit for this creative project to come into being, and I try to remember that. That it’s not about me and my creative vision, it’s about something that kind of already exists out there and it’s just kind of coming through me and everyone else associated with the project.
It occurs to me that during the process, when you invite people to bring a wardrobe selection and props, that probably introduces a whole different element. And it’s probably very telling in a way that the person that’s going to sit for you doesn’t realize.
Yeah, that’s been great. I stressed out in the beginning of the project, thinking, Oh God, how am I going to come up with costumes for everybody? The sizes are going to be different. And there are specific cases where an outfit does make a difference, and I need to come up with something, but that’s something that I’ve learned that I need to let go of. What I do is I tell people the concept I’m going for, what we’re going to do, and some general ideas I have about clothing, and people always come with the perfect thing. They just bring stuff and I look and I’m like, “That’s it. That’s what you’re supposed to wear.” I don’t usually have to worry. If I’m meant to find it in advance, I do. But that’s the thing that I had to learn on this project — and this is why it was so daunting to me in the beginning, to try to do a 78-card Tarot deck — I thought, I have got to figure everything out, right? Everything, I have to figure out the costumes, I have to be ready to plan every little detail. And I do still buy costumes, I do still do buy props, and I will need that. But it’s not — it’s funny, you think that everything is on you to come up with — you have to come up with the ideas. And I spend a lot of time and effort thinking about stuff, it’s no small task, but it is made so much easier by trusting that I’m going to get exactly what I need, and if I have the energy, if I’m meant to work on it, then I can. If it’s like, you need to find something, I will for whatever reason have the energy and money to find the thing I need.
But then when it’s ok to trust other people to be a part of it, then it’ll happen, it’ll manifest. People are drawn in by the enthusiasm I feel for the project, which is — and I guess, by the art, and by the whole project itself — but it’s easy to have enthusiasm for it because, yes, it’s effort and it’s work, and yet it’s also incredibly effortless.
You mean actually going through the whole process?
Yeah. Like last night, so I have a photo shoot that I have to do this weekend. And I’ve been incredibly busy. And I hadn’t really been able to sit down and think about it. And under normal circumstances, the old me would’ve worried, like, Oh God, I haven’t figured that out! I need to figure it out. Well, last night it just came to me! Just like that, this is what I need to do. It was just an image that kind of popped into my head as I was falling asleep, at a perfect time, because then today I got to communicate to the model, This is what we’re doing! Can you bring these kind of clothes? Can you bring your cats? She has enough time to get stuff together, and it’s going to be actually pretty awesome and fun. And I know that by now, I know that if it’s not coming yet, it’s not time for it to come. I can let go of it. It’s like, ok, I can take things one thing at a time, I don’t have to plan it all out. It’s going to be like magic, it’s going to come together. I’ve had it proven to me, over and over this has happened, so now I’m like, Ok, that’s fine.
And now it’s like, you would think I’d be incredibly stressed out by the fact that I have how many ever pieces of art, like maybe I’m 1/10 of the way through. But, no, it’ll be fine. It’s all going to come together. I just need to have fun. I just need to keep loose and have fun and bring everyone that I can into the thing that fits, and say, Ok, let’s all have fun together! It’s pretty awesome.
So that process totally reflects the experience making one card, or the one card you weren’t quite certain of.
I feel like so many artists have interpreted Tarot cards themselves, but a lot of them – not all of them, but a lot of them – seem to really go back to some standard or required images. And again, I feel like maybe that’s true of the card, maybe they have a very specific Rider-Waite association in their mind. Do you feel that way? Do you feel like when you approach a card, there’s always an element that has to be represented, in terms of a very literal visual symbol? Or is it more about the tone and meaning of the card?
I think it varies for me. Sometimes I do like to get something that seems recognizable as part of the common Rider-Waite imagery, just because it gives people some kind of foothold in the image. I feel like it’s helpful, it’s kind of — here’s my designer self coming in — it’s kind of a user experience, kind of thing to do. But at the same time, I don’t always do that, especially when the concept I have is just not compatible with that. The concept may be rooted in with something having to do with the Rider-Waite, but executed differently. I guess if you look at Strength, I toyed with other ideas but I decided, I’m going to put a lion in there, I’m going to put the infinity symbol over her head. I tried to do a little bit of a different take, including different symbology that implied strength. Up in the distance there’s the Fremont Bridge and Mt. Hood, both together, and they represent man-made strength and natural strength. Not that strength is necessarily just the core theme of the card, but it was that idea of balancing your animal nature, your natural self, with your kind of more egocentric, pre-conceived self, your self in the world, your self in being and doing, being a planned-out, thought-out person or creating things, and then you have this part of you that’s animal, and you have to bring it in and control it, but you have to control it just enough to where it doesn’t take you over. So I like the idea of like, a mountain is so — it is strong, but it’s a different kind of strength from a bridge. It’s funny, there are a lot of concepts that I haven’t quite tried to put words to, but it felt like a perfect tension of the idea of strength, manmade strength, natural strength, and then she’s feeding her little Chihuahua, Frida Nipples Kahlo, which I love her name, Frida Nipples Kahlo, but the idea in that was that she is relating to the animal world, nurturing it, like there’s a gentle connection with it. I did it a little different with the lion — she’s not taming it so much, but it is tamed, and it’s there protecting her, looking over her. I kind of liked having a kind of different angle on that.
It’s funny, it’s a lion from the Oregon Zoo. I took pictures of the lions, and I was amazed when they went — they posed for me, I felt like I came in, it was a shadowy day, and they were all in their little cave or whatever, their hidey-hole where they were hanging out cause it was kind of gloomy. The sun started to come out right when I came up to the lion den, and they all started coming out and getting up on the rocks, and I was like, “Thank you! You came out just in time for me! I really appreciate it!” And I had a limited amount of time, I couldn’t wait around for them, I was rushing. I was so worried, because that’s what I came for, was the lions. And then they came out right in time for me. It all adds up, it makes you feel like, oh, this is all meant to be! This is great! You get enough of those, you start to think, I’m doing something right.
About how many hours do you think it takes you per card to produce?
It varies, but I think I spend a minimum — if I calculate the photo shoot time into it, I usually don’t do that. The illustration takes me 20 to 40 hours each, probably. That includes basic design time, I imagine I’ll get faster as time goes on. I’m already seeing a little bit of a speed-up. But the photo shoots usually take me maybe like 3 to 6 hours, because there’s a lot of preplanning that goes into it, and the photo shoot itself, we generally go from 2 to 3 hours per shoot. I could spend anywhere from 26 to 46 hours on a piece total. Usually it’s around the middle or lower end of that scale, but it can be pretty…. I’m not just getting photos of the individuals, I’m getting photos, I have to go around Portland, I think, ok, I’m looking for — like in the strength card — I’m looking for a grassy knoll that is lit in this specific way, because I have this specific image in my mind, and in the middle of a time when it’s fall. I actually made that image look very summery, actually it is a grassy knoll in a — the only one that I could find that had the kind of look I was looking for, was in a cemetery in deep southeast Portland. And I photoshopped out all the gravestones that were in the ground, because I could not find what I needed, so I had to make it work for me. So it’s pretty funny.
But I have to hunt for things, and when I get into that mode of, Ok, I’m looking for this, this, and this, I have to be willing to stop my car, and be like, That’s perfect! and jump out and take a picture at any time, no matter what’s going on.
And it’s funny, because I’m already disappointed that I’ve missed the cherry blossom season, it lasts about five days when they’re perfect, and I have not had time to go take pictures. I almost did last weekend, and I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t just do it because…It’s happened now. It’s done. Although I’ll probably be working on this a little bit through next spring, so if I’m desperate I could probably get it, or see if any people I know have photos already. But it’s funny, stuff like that, I have to be (normally) ready to just drop everything and go take a picture, and it can take me — I sometimes need to collect 10 to 20 individual images to pull something off.
So we can assume that none of these images are public domain?
There’s a couple of things that I’ve had to do in public domain, I try to make sure that none of them are share alike. I can’t really do that because I’m trying to print a deck, and I have to distribute it, and I can’t actually share alike. But I’m happy to give people credit, and those are things that, if it’s a deal where you can use this but you have to give credit, those are things that I do. I don’t do a lot of it, I try really hard to just use mostly my own images. My photos or my mentor, Lee Moyer, who’s an incredible illustrator, very talented person, I’m so delighted that he’s supporting me on this project and willing to review my final pieces just to give me suggestions, to add a little punch to it. He has kindly been able to provide some imagery for me to use, because he has a good library of stuff. That was another daunting part of it — I was like, Oh God, how am I going to come up with all these individual images to create these pictures? Well, I don’t have to come up with every single one, apparently.
It helps me, because every once in a while I need something, and here it is in the library that I got from him. So we have a good give and take relationship there, so I really appreciate having that resource. It makes it a little less daunting. But I have a lot of other photography ahead of me, it’s not just a matter of taking the model photos. There’s a lot more that goes into it.
And it’s funny, people have said, ‘You realize that that shadow’s not quite realistic?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s not going to be.’ There are certain effects that I’m trying to create that are not actually realistic effects, and so I just kind of try to ride a line. I’m like, Yeah, it’s not quite realistic, but it’s surreal. It’s meant to be surreal! That’s totally fine. Just let it be what it’s going to be. And I think it actually kind of works. Like in the Chariot card, she has a totally wrong shadow under her car, but I don’t want there to be a giant shadow in the middle of the picture, it’ll take away interest. So I’m like, ok, I won’t have a shadow. It’ll be totally unrealistic, and it’ll be fine.
I have to let go of those kind of logical assessments. I have them, I think about it, and then I go, yeah, no, fuck it.
At what point in this process did you decide to start a Kickstarter campaign to complete the deck? Did you always know it was going to be necessary?
I did always know that I would need to do a Kickstarter in order to fund the printing of the deck. I want to get enough decks to give to Kickstarter supporters, but my ultimate goal is to actually get enough decks to try to get them into local retailers. Especially because this deck has such a strong Portland theme, I feel it’s totally appropriate to get in Powell’s and New Seasons. And I think it has broader appeal. I don’t think it’s just a Portland deck, even though I call it the Portland Tarot. I played with the idea of calling it something more generic, like The Tarot of Bridges, cause it is a bridge in consciousness, and I see Tarot as being that. But who knows? I might change it in the long run, but I don’t think so, because, God, I love Portland. And I think that people kind of are a little bit more aware of Portland. I don’t think it’ll take away from its appeal for people that maybe know nothing about Portland. You don’t have to know anything about Portland to be able to connect with the deck.
I try to make it as universal as I can, despite the fact that it is regional. Anyway, the Kickstarter will allow me to do enough prints to maybe start building some traction there, and see if I can get some local sales. But yes, I did always know that I would do a Kickstarter, and I was tempted to do two, because I have overhead costs to start with. I need a few pieces of equipment. Even if I don’t get a new camera, which would be my ideal, because my camera’s good, and it’s been good to me for years, but I could really use an upgrade so that I can get some more megapixels in the camera. And I need an on-camera flash and a couple of lenses. Those are things that I could really use to actually up the quality of my imagery. Those things maybe I could live without, ideally not, but costumes, props, those are still things I have to come up with some times. Hair stylists — on some of my photo shoots, I try to group them together to make the most of things. Some people don’t really need a whole lot of hair or makeup stuff, but sometimes they do need to get a hair or makeup person on to get the most out of a specific image, so I’ll try to cluster those together on a day and then pay a hair stylist, and I’ve already done that before. And then there are other costs that you just don’t consider over time: You need a new battery for your camera, you need extra hard drive space, whatever. Printing prints, that is something I want to include in the Kickstarter, just to get some basic prints started of the art. Promotion — all these little overhead costs that add up over time. And in my ideal universe, I could get paid for some of my time, because as you heard, it’s intensely time-consuming, and as it stands, it becomes this thing that consumes all my evenings and weekends, and I don’t really have any time for myself. So that would be my dream world. But at the very least, I wanted to get those things covered, and that’s why I didn’t choose to do a Kickstarter next year when I’m closer to ready to print, which would be the bulk of the money that I need, because printing is incredibly expensive, especially when you’re looking at cards, a box, and maybe a booklet.
And I have to decide what I’m going to do with that.
I almost did two, because there were two different kinds of costs, but a Kickstarter is so time-consuming and effort-intense, and that means, if I do a second Kickstarter, that means a month and a half taken away from me working on the deck. And I can’t afford another month and a half, I mean, this is already taking me away from the work, and I am in a great flow. I’ve got a ton of imagery that I am just ready and I’m just excited to get out on paper, so the soonest I can stop focusing on that and just start doing that, the better off I’ll be.
It’s great fun. I’ve seen it already, I’m still, as you and I are talking, just getting ready to launch it. But I have a few friends that have had some incredibly successful Kickstarter campaigns, and they’re like, “It’s an all-consuming thing. It takes up a lot of your time and energy for the time that you’re working on it and before.” And that’s totally great, because I’m super stoked by the idea of getting to know some new fans, getting to know people who totally resonate with the project, and that’ll be thrilling, just to figure out what the appeal is, if people really do want it. If they do, then that’s going to be great. So it’s kind of free market research — well, not totally free, because my time isn’t totally free. It’s a good nudge, it’s like, it’s interesting for me to be trying to get out in the world before I’m totally done. But I think that’s going to be exciting. I think that whoever kind of comes into the picture who is like, Yeah, I want this deck! that’s just going to be fuel to the fire, help me, help sustain my energy throughout the project. Not that I wouldn’t do it anyway, it’s just at this point I kind of feel like it’s pulling me along.
No matter if Kickstarter succeeds or fails, like, well, this is what I’m doing, somehow or another, it might take me five years to finish it, or it might take me another year, year and a half. However it happens, I’m doing it, but I would really, really love to do it as efficiently as possible without having to scrounge up money and save and save and save for years to make it happen. It feels relevant and timely right now, and I would like to get it done now if possible.
Tell me about your rewards for higher-level contributors.
I have a reward, the $4,500-level reward will be an opportunity to be in a card of my choosing. So I’ll interview the person, and I’ll get a sense of who they are, what is going on for them? I really love the concept of the card being a totem. Because what I feel like happened with Cynthia, for instance, is that we made this totem card and it represented something that she was stepping into and becoming, and it’s pretty funny. Obviously it’s not the card’s doing, but I feel like shedding light on a process is powerful. So shedding light on what you are deliberately stepping into in your life, or something you are deliberately encountering, just putting attention on it, moves that energy, if that makes any sense. Right now, she is totally on fire. And she would’ve been, on her own, but it just, it feels so — there’s a rightness to it, and a power to it. It’s very potent to be like, Wow, this is where we started with this, and now this is where it is. She is even more that card than she was when we started.
So do you think that being involved in this process brings the model’s focus onto something that has already been identified as very personal to them?
I think it’s powerful. I believe that there’s magic in it. I absolutely do believe there’s magic in it. Even if it’s — confronting something about yourself. Like, if there is a shadow energy present around something in your life that you want to confront. It could be even a card that feels traditionally like, Oh God, I don’t want that card in my reading — then do that. Do that card, assuming we haven’t already done it. Like, let’s take that on, let’s take the power of that on and say, All right. I’m looking you straight in the eye, and I just think that there’s something amazing about that. And powerful. And I really believe it’s magic. I can’t say that I take credit for that magic, I just feel like the universe flows through us, there’s ritual, I guess. We have various kinds of ritual in our lives, and this process is very much like a ritual to me.
And then again, you could just like it. You don’t have to come into it with the idea that you’re confronting anything or you’re trying to bring anything to your life, but just like the idea of playing make-believe for a while and having a costume on, but personally I feel like it’s a really powerful thing to shed light on someone’s — anytime you decide to shed light on a strength that someone has that maybe they haven’t acknowledged, or a process they’re going through, it’s like therapy. It’s like a really powerful art therapy, except someone else is making the art in this case.
On a personal note, I have to say for me it was really cool to hear which card reminded you of me. That in itself was very educational and kind of informative. I’m sure I’m not just speaking for myself when I say I really consider you an insightful person, and you’ve done Tarot readings before. So it’s really been an interesting process, because I wouldn’t just say to you, “Well, what process do you think I’m going through? What’s your take on me right now?” And I remember reading through the meaning behind the Moon card and just thinking, ‘Oh! That’s awesome! And how interesting that you observed that and this is your take on what I’ve been going through, and am going through right now.’ Actually, I think to be in your position might be a bit harrowing for me, because it’s like you’re saying, “Hey, guys! This is what I see!” But it’s also very profound and truthful.
That’s something I really love about it. In my day to day work as a graphic designer/marketing web person, I do business coaching, I am intuitive. I read people really well on an energetic level. And I feel like my most exciting meeting is that first meeting I have with a client, where I’m like, Ok, this is what we’re doing! I might be doing a logo or a website or whatever. They think that they’ve just hired me to do a logo or a website, and here I am, I’m going to sit down with them, I’m going to go, “What’s your dream? What’s your passion? Who are you? What are you about? What do you like? What do you not like?” Getting a real sense of them and reading them as they talk about things and kind of shifting things in a direction where I’m like, Ok. You’re aiming for this, and that’s great and all, but let’s aim high. We can do something with your logo that is the beginning — it is the first step onto an amazing journey. And so I do that in my Tarot readings too. For me it’s about the big picture, it’s like, ok, you could do a Tarot reading that asks a question about like, how that job interview’s going to go or whatever, but are you on your path? Who are you? What do you care about? Where do you want to go with your life? That is really what I feel like I’m channeling when I do a Tarot reading for somebody. Bringing it together, I’m just trying to get out of the way as much as possible and to see things as clearly as I can.
I want to make sure that I stand aside as much as I can when I’m doing a reading, and I just let the energy come through me, and the information come through me, and I relay it as truthfully as possible. But I’ve been doing it a while and I feel like I get a sense of people really quickly, and what they need to shift. There is an intuitive process happening when I do a card. I’m not just doing it because I think it would be cool to have that person — it is that way sometimes, but most of the time I’m thinking, Well what will this mean to this person? Because people giving you their time and their energy, their being willing to model for you, that is a huge deal. So I want it to kind of come back to them. So many people have said that this has been such a powerful experience, so I thought, well why not share that process with other people for this Kickstarter? Give them an opportunity to do it? It’s time-consuming, it take a lot of time to build a piece, and I try to build a rapport with the person and get a sense of who they are. As I’ve said here, I try to really intuit what they’re doing with their lives, where they’re going, what matters to them, and take that all in. It has a cross point, which is what cards do I need to illustrate still? Which are quite a few, so there’s quite a lot left.
What occurs to me, though, is, are you allowing people to choose their own card? Or would you just assign them a card from what’s remaining?
I wouldn’t just give it to them willy-nilly. That’s not because I don’t want to give them the freedom of choice. But there’s two things here: I want them to have a really good experience and feel like they’re getting something emotionally satisfying and fulfilling out of that experience, but there’s also the integrity of the deck that I have to hold up. And so I don’t want to put someone into the card that’s a wrong fit. I feel like everyone would regret that down the line. Like, not even that there’s a wrong fit, but that there could have been something better for us to do that would’ve been even more incredible. It’s not even about it not being necessarily the right fit, just being like, Well, what’s the best fit possible? Here’s the deal: I’m not worried about it. I actually absolutely trust that the right people will be attracted to this offering, and that we’re going to find exactly the right direction to go in. Because that’s the way everything’s been. It’s a collaboration. I’m going to tell them what I feel and think, and then we’re going to talk it out. It’s not going to be like a thing where they — in fact, what I want to do with this offering is, maybe people who are interested in it, I could give them a chance to talk to me a little bit first before they put that money down, so that they feel confident that they’re happy with the direction we’re going. It’s an investment, and I want to make sure that everyone is feeling good about it, just like I would do with any graphic design or web design project. But it’s basically a commissioned portrait essentially, at the end of the day. But it’s fun. There’s magic to it, and in the long-term my goal is that this deck will become a fairly well-known deck. So if someone becomes the Queen of Wands, then they’ll forever be the Queen of Wands in this deck. I think that that’s a pretty awesome little payback.
Plus they’ll get a large print of the piece framed that they can have for their own collection and I’ll sign it and everything. It will be those benefits. And then I’m going to do a bigger reward beyond that, which is still in the process of being defined, so the next level up kind of customer reward, it’ll have some fun little pieces for people who might want to contribute in a big way to the project. Not that $4,500 isn’t a big way.
How did you come to Tarot-reading? I think you said something about your grandmother having something to do with it.
I started out with divination, and I can’t even remember when, using Brian Froud’s Fairy Oracle, and of course I totally got into Brian Froud because I was obsessed with ‘The Labyrinth’ when I was younger. His artwork is incredible. So I was using that for a while. And I found — and I still to this day use it occasionally, it’s really accurate and helpful and wonderful — and that was probably sometime in 2002 or something that I got into that. And then around I want to say 2008, I picked up Tarot. I’d been tempted by it before, hadn’t quite gotten into it, and I was just suddenly into it in a really big way. I got a Tarot deck, it might’ve been the Goddess Tarot that I started out with, I can’t remember, and I got books from the library. I was just doing readings constantly, I was journaling about it, making notes about every reading I did, which was really helpful because I feel like I learned a lot about the cards — I’m a very hands-on learner, so I learned a lot by experience. And I started to build a stronger and stronger intuitive relationship with Tarot, and luckily my friend and teacher in the intuitive world, Liliana Barzola-Read, I had been taking her psychic kindergarten classes for a while now, and I was getting more and more in touch with my intuitive side. I remember one night when we were at an event, and I was doing Tarot readings for fun — I would do Tarot readings for people constantly, because I was trying to get practice — I had this night, we had a woman’s night out, and I just stayed up like half the night doing Tarot readings for people, because they loved it so much. And I was doing a reading for someone, Liliana was watching me, and I was saying, “I think…” and “Oh, I don’t know, I’m not sure” and she was like, “Just say what comes into your mind. Trust yourself, because when you do that, you’re actually giving people very accurate readings.” She could read them, and she could see that when I was in that trust place, I was totally spot-on, but I was doubting myself too much. And so I started to just do that. I just trusted her advice, and that’s what I do to this day. The first thing that comes to my mind is going to help. And it’s always right. The more I trust it, the more right it is. I just go with the flow.
For me, Tarot tells a story. I’m about the relationship between cards. When I see cards together, I can see how they’re interacting and what story they’re telling. And so that was how I started to realize that I interacted with Tarot, I started doing some Tarot readings for pay. I’d do it on the side of my graphic design business. But people would call me up sometimes and hire me to do Tarot readings. So it’s been really fun, getting into that as a more professional Tarot reader, although it’s not a full-time thing that I do, I just do it when people ask.
So I’d been studying Tarot for about six months, I believe. I’m increasingly close to my grandmother on my mother’s side, especially after my mother passed away, we started to get really close. And so, she doesn’t have a whole lot of other people in her life anyway. So I keep in touch with her. I’ve gotten more and more comfortable telling her about my life, I know that some people might not talk to their grandmas about this, but I was telling her, like, I’m really getting into Tarot! I’m having a lot of fun with it, and I think that I’m really good at it! And she said, Did I tell you that I used to read Tarot? And I’m like, nooooo, you didn’t tell me that. And she said, Oh yeah. I had a friend who — I don’t know how old she was at the time, she said — When I lived in Germany, I had this friend who, one day we were hanging out, and she just taught me how to read Tarot from a deck of playing cards. And I was like, Really? Well, that’s really interesting, grandma. And she said, Yeah, it was my first time, and she just gave me the deck, and she said, you try it! And I said, Oh no, no, I couldn’t possibly, I don’t know what I’m doing. …She gives her a reading, she goes, Um, I think that this means that your husband has a heart condition. And her friend said, Are you kidding? No! Of course he doesn’t! He’s never told me about it, he doesn’t have a heart condition. …Next week, her friend comes over frantically. My husband! My husband has a heart condition! She said, I found the medicine in the medicine cabinet, and he didn’t tell me about it because he didn’t want to worry me! He just found out a couple weeks ago.
And so that was her first experience, and the way she describes it is that Tarot — she and I have a different relationship with the Tarot. It’s very interesting. She just gets images in her mind. For me, it’s a story, like if I just talk, it kind of flows out of me. And I will get images sometimes, because I am visual, but I don’t know, I can’t describe how it happens, but if I just get out of the way and stop worrying, like my mouth is going to say the right things.
My grandmother would get them and just — I’m serious, from a deck of playing cards, she could read stuff.
Of course, playing cards are related to tarocchi, so it has a relationship. Of course you don’t have all the major arcana with that.
So that’s what she did, and she got kind of well-known for a long time for doing Tarot. People would come to her house, especially her girlfriends who wanted to know about some guy, someone they were in love with.
And she said everything she predicted happened within two weeks. That was her thing, that was her trend. And it’s interesting, with any kind of intuitive thing, I think it’s different for everybody, how they connect with it. So she doesn’t read Tarot anymore, although I’ve been like, I’ve sent her decks, I’ve sent her books to help her get reacquainted with it. And she is — I’m very excited that she’s been playing with it more and more, and getting back into her old gift. But the funny thing about her is, that she’s very intuitive, she’ll tell me about bad feelings she gets — I’ll have been really sick, and I’ll call her, and she’ll say, Yeah, I got a really bad feeling about something…
She gets these gut impressions sometimes. It’s interesting though, I feel like my mother was also intuitive, and I feel like some part of her drinking was actually trying to drown out all the energetic information she was getting from people. It’s like a radio, and what you tune into is what you receive, so she was tuned into people’s negative emotions, cause that’s where — something with her upbringing, and there were all kinds of factors there, but she would read people’s negative thoughts and emotions, and I believe she got overwhelmed by them. She would also have these crazy spiritual experiences. When I was twelve, she told me how when we went to a castle in Germany when I was six, she saw all the ghosts of the people still walking around and doing their jobs in this castle. But she didn’t tell me, because I wouldn’t have gotten it until I was twelve. That was the first time she told me about that.
She would have really interesting experiences, because she was a very sensitive person. So I feel like it runs in the women in my family on that side, and I’m kind of the first one to actually learn tools how to deal with it. Because I used to have incredible anxiety, and it was really because I couldn’t recognize that I was receiving other people’s energy, and I didn’t know how to put out a boundary. It still is hard. I finally realized I can’t work at a normal office environment because of that. I’m incredibly sensitive to other people’s energy. I can keep up my boundaries for so long, and after a while, it’s too exhausting, it’s too much work, and I just can’t do it anymore. Cause I am kind of like, I do healer-y things, from a counselor’s kind of angle. And I can’t heal everything, and so I have to — politics happen everywhere, I’m much more sensitive to politics in an office place, cause it’s the energy, the dynamic of it, I can feel really palpably. So in order to deal with anxiety, I’ve had to learn tools. Like my friend’s classes are incredible for that, I learned a lot a lot a lot about sensing energy, like, Oh, that’s your energy, this is my energy — I don’t have to let that in, I can just have my energy, and my own thing going on, so that was powerful.
And I don’t feel like the women in my family really had that experience.
When I think about anxiety around intuition and being an intuitive person, it’s like you just have too much information coming in and you don’t know what to do with it, so you’re not totally connected to the earth, because you’re afraid that if you get too connected, you’re going to get overloaded. Energy just kind of spins around in your body without anywhere to go.
So you can’t really ground yourself?
Yes. You’re kind of afraid to. You’re like, if I ground myself, shit’s going to hit the fan. I’m going to really have a hard time settling in, and so for me the trick was learning to ground myself and ground my energy, just make that connection, that strong, grounded connection to the earth, let things flow through me. Because I would find that, for me, I’m very sensitive to the feeling of energy in my body, and so it would be like, ‘Ok, I feel a feeling. It’s coming down from my head, through my throat, down my chest and into my belly, and into my solar plexus. And it’s just staying there, and it doesn’t go anywhere. It stays there and it gets caught, and I’m focused on it, going, ‘Wow. I am so anxious! This is what anxious feels like.’ But if I let it go down through my legs and into the ground, into the earth, and I keep moving it, I end up feeling like, ‘Oh, I’m at peace.’
And then there’s also parts of it, which is, learning to recognize, what is someone else and what is you? And that’s just a good skill even if you don’t believe in energy, that’s a good skill. That is their business, this is mine. That’s the thing — when your energy boundaries are not clear, and your boundaries in general are not clear, other people’s shit starts to enter your sphere, and you try to take responsibility for it, instead of going, ‘You know, this is my shit, this is your shit, you do your thing, I do my thing. And I’ll let you be responsible for your own stuff. I’ll be resopnsible for figuring my stuff out.’
And it’s hard to do that, because in relationships we’re trying to make sure everyone is ok, figure out that balance. That’s when anxiety comes in, because you just don’t have the power to change everything. You can only have power over yourself. When you start to believe anything but that, well then, of course you’re going to be anxious, because what can you do?
It’s fascinating how energy tools and learning to understand the dynamics of energy flow between people and myself, and what my boundaries are, and what’s a heatlhy kind of healing. You don’t want to heal people that don’t want to be healed. Because you know what? Then you’re just giving your energy to them, and they’re going to take it and take it and take it, in a lot of cases, and it’s going to go nowhere. Because only your energy can heal you. Unless someone is inviting you in to help them, that’s a different energy, that’s a collaborative thing. It’s collaboration and it’s done with great spirit and intent and personal responsibility, that’s a different thing.
It was fascinating to realize, Ok, here I am, I’m the third in a group — my grandmother, my mother, now me. And I’m learning how to work with this responsibly, and it’s fun to take those energy tools into Tarot reading. They absolutely apply to help you get neutrality and help you give people what’s in their highest good.
Tarot is such a perspective tool.
Right. And sometimes it’s great to do it on your own, I think that it’s important. But then if you get someone else to do it who you trust and you get a perspective — you know I have a hard time sometimes doing readings for myself if it’s really important, sometimes I need someone to do it for me. It gets muddy.
Do you need the distance?
Because you know what you want. If you’re really attached, you know what you want, and that’s what you’re going to see, is what you want. If it’s something that you can get enough distance from, usually — it takes time and practice to recognize when you’re actually too close to something.
For me, I think if there’s an outcome you want or there’s already a mythology about your situation that you want to believe, it’s easy to read into the cards in a way that supports that. I think that, for me, is the value of having someone who’s actually really done it, and has the experience, and is more impartial, read for me.
And it depends. If you’re doing a reading and a lot of cards are kind of coming together to make sense in a certain direction, then yeah, you can probably believe it. I find the funny thing about when you’re doing a Tarot reading for yourself, is those moments where you’re like, “I don’t want that card! I don’t want that!” And then you have to learn to go, “Well…”
Over time you start to trust the Tarot more. You start to go, “You know what? This is information that will make me happier if I listen to it.” It’s not here to make me depressed or anxious or upset. It’s here to guide me in a direction that is actually in my highest good. If I really am honest with myself that this is true in some way, if I just try to be real about how it is true, then I’m going to more quickly move through whatever block I’m experiencing and get closer to what is best for me and will make me happiest. That’s how I try to learn how to approach it when I get stuck.
It’s kind of a tough-love approach.
It can be. I was having a conversation today with someone about Tarot, and how Tarot is actually very funny. The more you do Tarot readings for yourself, the more you realize Tarot has a hilarious sense of humor, and it can be annoying sometimes. And that’s why I like having a humorous deck, because, actually, for me, Tarot is funny. And it will do things like, you’ll do a reading. This will be your fourth reading on the same subject, and you’re like, “I want different cards!” — you’ll get the same cards, and the more you sense the energy, the universe is going, “Quit asking me! I’m not going to tell you anything different.” But it has a funniness about it. Or if there’s something that I’m supposed to be learning by experience, and I’m sitting here asking Tarot a question about it — it’ll just comment on the situation. I call it Tarot commentary.
I’m trying to find an example…you had coffee with a friend, you got into an argument, and now you’re unhappy. And I’ll be like, Well, I know all that! It’ll be funny, it’ll be not telling me anything new, just “This is what’s happening.”
And it’s funny, because it kind of is not encouraging, but it kind of helps you believe more because you’re like, “Oh, it’s so spot-on about what’s actually happening!” Like, it helps you build a relationship with the cards.
Early on, when I was still learning it and I was still trying to decide how much I believed in what I was doing — because you do that with anything you’re learning, and enough of that kind of stuff happening, you’ll be like, “Yep. It’s totally real. It’s totally predicting things. I picked random cards, this was not premeditated. Here I have a whole reading that’s telling me exactly what’s happening, so I can read new information,” and usually what I found out later was, no, I had to live through that. I had to have that experience. So it’s kind of funny.
But if you are coming at it from kind of a casual, whatever kind of way, it will laugh in your face. I Ching will do that too. You pull the one I Ching that’s like, You’re not serious about this. Come back and ask later.
It’s where the Magic 8 Ball might have come from.
Yeah!
But it is funny, a Tarot reading will do that. It will say, “Guess what? I’m not helping you because you’re not serious about your inquiry.”
You brought up the sense of humor about the Tarot deck, and this one in particular, and that’s what struck me about it. I think that when people first come to Tarot, if they don’t know a whole lot about it, what they know is from a more cinematic understanding. Films use Tarot to be prescient, to move the story along. And films will often use the Death card. So many movies use that. It’s a scary card, but the way it’s interpreted in a more mainstream way is not how you interpret it if you were doing a proper reading. Nobody’s probably going to die.
I bring that up because I think the great thing about this different aesthetic, especially the irreverent Portland theme, is that visually it encourages people to realize that Tarot isn’t all doom and gloom.
It’s nice to hear you say that out loud, because actually, that is maybe an unconscious process I had after doing enough readings for people. They get the Death card. I would tell people, If you get the Death card, the Tower card, anything scary — the Devil — don’t freak out. It’s just information. It doesn’t mean you’re going to die. It doesn’t mean the devil is hanging over your shoulder. I have to prep them because sometimes people are nervous about that.
And I do want this to be an accessible deck. I want it to be a Tarot deck for every day. For people who want to do readings for themselves, and they want it to somehow relate to their world, but still have a beautiful, mysterious quality to it. That’s kind of something I’m trying to bridge with the deck. I wanted to have a playfulness, but also be real and give people real information.
So it’s funny, (The Moon) card is probably one of the more serious ones. Not everyone notices on first glance that there is a second face, which you contributed to that concept when we were talking about it. We were doing the photoshoot and you had an idea that led to me going, Wait a minute! I’ve been wanting to do something like this, where we do a second face, over the original face. And that’s really about the Jungian shadow stuff. And what I like about it is, it’s not obvious. And when you need to see it, you will see it. Sometimes people see it, and they go, “Oh my God! There’s this screaming face coming out of the shadows right out of the side of her face!” and it kind of blows them away. That’s what’s awesome about it.
I look at it now, and I remember sitting for the photos, and I remember that I was trying to force a kind of detached, serene look. And maybe if you do look and you do notice that second face, the serenity does look a little bit forced.
Kind of controlled, yeah.
And really, what’s going on on the other side of my face is a little bit scary. Or not even scary – just a little bit overwhelming.
It’s feral. It’s a feral quality.
That’s something that I really liked about how that turned out. Again, that’s an example of how things happen in the moment that inspire new imagery. And there will be some dark cards in there, no mistaking. But it’s funny, I feel like poking the Death card in the eye. But it’s still serious! My model, Brooke, is very somber as Death. So all this stuff is kind of silly and whimsical, but she’s incredibly somber in the card. So she’s serious, Death is all business, but it’s playful and light in some ways.
And hey, having a serious Death card, I get it. Change is really difficult. When you are actually experiencing a change that is changing the very core of your being in some intense way, that is scary. You feel like you’re encountering literal death. So I get why that card is very serious. The problem with me is that I keep having to reinvent myself over and over again in my life. Change is fun for me, even when it’s kind of masochistic and kind of torturous. I revel in change. Maybe that’s reflected a little bit in my card illustration, the idea that, well, yeah, this is serious business, but it’s actually kind of fun.
My personal reading, too, is once you’ve been through the first few experiences of change, the first few that feel like a kind of death, it’s almost like you – I shouldn’t say conserve your energy – but you learn how to freak the fuck out much less.
Right. You recognize that life has its ebbs and flows, and that there’s a pattern in that you are going to experience this again, so you might as well conserve your energy. I like that phrase. You might as well just put your focus somewhere else cause change is going to happen whether you like it or not. If you go with the change more, then you’re going to get more out of it and be more at peace.
Of course, for me, I chuckled at the idea that Death is usually on a white horse. Ok, well, a unicorn’s a white horse of a kind! And then once the Day of the Dead, the skull candy makeup, came into the picture, I’m like, Ok, this is all over with. This is total whimsy out the wazoo. I gotta go to town with this.
Day of the Dead strikes me as a healthy approach to loss and a way of reminding yourself that loss is inevitable – every single year. And so that’s perfect on a card where you know you can’t take the literal meaning. The same way that death is inevitable, the Day of the Dead reminds me that people of other cultures keep their dead with them in a more active way than we do. And they keep death with them.
A reminder that your life is finite, and you have to make the most of things. That’s another part of death. It’s taken me some time to kind of feel this out for myself, but I believe in reincarnation and I feel like we get other chances. But the funny thing about me and the idea of reincarnation, the fact that I’m going to die, maybe reborn as another person with another personality but with the same soul — it makes me more eager to get on with things in this life and do the best I can and not to resist change. Because why wait? Why coast? When you can get so much, have a rich, juicy life where you’re becoming better and better and stronger and stronger, instead of life being like, well, I got infinity to get this done. I can just watch TV all day and eat bon bons.
Well, no, you’re eventually going to have to, you might as well move now. Because actually you’re more alive and you’re having a better time ultimately in all the pain and suffering, if you just decide, I’m not going to live a comfortable life, I’m going to live a full life. You’re going to get the most out of this life.
The process is kind of electrifying, yeah.
I will never get to be this person again, so I might as well have fun doing it. So I like that concept of death, too, where it’s a celebration of reinvention and regeneration.
