The Art of Tarot
Delving into the six tarot decks in my collection...
Last week I went to a talk at Banyen Books by the tarot reader and author Ethony Dawn. It was an interesting evening, where she told her story of becoming a tarot reader and designing her own decks, then she took questions from the audience, many of whom were using tarot in their own practice, as a divination tool or a counseling aid.
For anyone who doesn’t know, tarot cards are an ancient tool used by spiritual seekers, artists, counselors, and psychic readers for the purpose of fortune telling, psychological guidance, emotional healing, or a combination thereof.
Although I was never confident enough (or interested in taking on the psychic responsibility) to do readings for other people, I’ve always been fascinated by the art, the lore, and the storytelling of tarot cards.
My Tarot Collection
After attending this talk, I decided to write about the decks in my collection, which sparked a deep search of my apartment. I’m very organized, but I have a tendency to tuck things away in ingenious ways that make them hard to find should the need arise.
I searched every cupboard of my massive bookcase, twice, then lifted the mattress to look under the platform bed, where I store all the fabric I’m no longer using now that my obsession with sewing has gone into remission…
After a few hours, I finally found the box tucked away behind a bunch of drawing notebooks and a set of drawers full of impeccably organized buttons, buckles, and hook fasteners. Victory!
Barbara Walker Tarot
I got my first deck of tarot cards when I was 13, when my mother was working at the bookstore Astrology Et Al in Seattle. My first deck really reflected my Scorpio rising. It was called the Barbara Walker Tarot and its stark red, white, and black design was what first attracted me.
At 13, I was just coming out of a long Pluto conjunction to my Scorpio ascendant (and if you don’t know what that means, let’s just say puberty came with an intense identity jolt that brought all kinds of adult themes (no abuse, let’s get that straight!).
At 13, I looked 16 and acted 21. I was desperate to be taken seriously and treated like an adult, which made a lot of adults (not to mention many of my peers) very uncomfortable. I dyed my hair dark red and went through a quasi-goth phase. So the dark symbolism and heavy mystical themes of the Barbara Walker tarot really appealed to me at the time.
Beyond the artwork, the deck was pretty beginner friendly because every card in the minor arcana (the cards that are numbered Ace through King, just like playing cards) had a little descriptive word at the top so you knew what it meant, like “Dream” for the Seven of Cups, and “Defeat” for the Five of Swords.
The major arcana and royal face cards were drawn from a mix of different mythologies and literature, which I was already interested in at that age. For example, Kali was the the Queen of Swords, Nimue from Arthurian Legend was the Princess of Pentacles, etc.
Mythic Tarot
My interest in tarot cards was rekindled in my late 20s and I spent hours researching their meaning and symbolism, and doing online readings. The first deck I became obsessed with was the Mythic Tarot, a deck based on Greek mythology and legends.
I was going through a period of severe economic hardship at the time, which is right up there with “necessity” as being the mother of invention. Since I couldn’t afford to go out and buy all the beautiful tarot decks I wanted, I got really creative.
Back then, there were a lot of websites were people would share high resolution scans of art from galleries, fantasy books, calendars, and even tarot decks. I decided I needed to collect all 78 cards from the Mythic Tarot so I could print them myself, which took months.
When I finally had every card, I printed them out and hot glued them to a pack (actually one and a half packs) of regular playing cards. I even created a box for them. These days, I can afford things (hallelujah!) and I would never dream of depriving the true artist of payment for their work, but looking back, I’m kind of amazed at my commitment!
The William Blake Tarot
William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English artist, poet and visionary whose work you would probably recognize if you saw it. His painting The Great Red Dragon featured prominently in the third and (as yet) final season of Hannibal, one of the best TV shows of all time.
Blake didn’t set out to design a tarot deck, but his artwork was incredibly prolific and the subject matter aligned perfectly with the tarot’s themes of spiritual journey and transformation.
Author Ed Buryn matched 79 of William Blake’s works to the major and minor arcana, and came up with four different suits for a custom-made artist’s journey of creative enlightenment.
In the William Blake Tarot, the suit of Cups became Music, Pentacles became Painting, Swords became Science, and Wands became Poetry. In the major arcana, some things like the Moon remained the same, while the Fool became “Innocence,” the Tower became “Lightning,” etc.
This was another deck that I printed myself and mounted to playing cards, but I think one day I would like to buy a real version of this unbelievably beautiful deck, if for no other reason than to honor Ed Buryn’s vision by actually paying for it.
I used this deck for personal readings a lot back in the day. The descriptions and interpretations are different from the traditional meanings, but familiar enough to offer a dual meaning to anyone familiar with tarot cards.
It’s perfect for anyone trying to pursue an artistic or spiritual life in a world that is oppressively weighted towards the triumph of science and reason at the expense of anything else.
The Arthurian Tarot
One of two decks I actually own, this one is based on the King Arthur legends and is a lovely collection of watercolor style paintings, very soft and mystical.
My interest in this deck was purely for the art, as I’ve never actually read any of the Arthurian Legends, unless you count The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. When I got this deck, I don’t think there yet existed a deck based on The Lord of the Rings, which would have been the next logical step.
There are a few Lord of the Rings decks now, but honestly, I don’t endorse any of them. I mean, how can you create a tarot deck based on a fictional universe where there are only three major female characters (four, if you count Shelob the spider)?! The internet says there are 11, if you count incredibly minor characters.
Game of Thrones would make a much better tarot deck, but based on the image linked here, I’m already arguing with some of their choices LOL. Then again, half the fun of a deck based on popular culture or literature is thinking, How could they cast Jon Snow as The Emperor? After all, he knows nothing!
Brienne of Tarth as Strength, though? Perfect.
Shadowscapes Tarot
Another deck I bought for the art alone. I had been following the art of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law for years, and I watched as she slowly (over the course of years!) built her tarot deck one card at a time.
When the deck was finally completed and made available on her website, I had already spent hours pouring over the rough drawings and first drafts, reading her descriptions of the symbolism and her artistic process, I just had to order the deck.
The photo above doesn’t do it justice. Her colors and details are extraordinary. I highly recommend visiting her site and doing a deep dive. She is extremely prolific and talented.
My Tarot Deck
In early 2001, I started “designing” my own deck, a set of collage pieces combining the work of many of my favorite artists, with photography in the public domain and my own friends and family.
Each card is based on my own interpretation of the traditional tarot, with personal stories and characters from my life playing major parts.
The Lovers, for example, is a photo of my partner Rodger’s parents, a couple who met in their teens and had a nearly perfect marriage, raising their two adopted children in an idyllic home filled with love, support, and acceptance.
The Sun is based on my partner, the light of my life, with his electric guitar. The Moon is based on my mother, representing intuition, dreams, the subconscious and unconscious, and the need to look beyond what is obvious to gain understanding.
The Tower card was designed a month after 9-11, featuring the World Trade Center towers. Its meaning signifies sudden, shocking, and unavoidable change, upheaval, and the collapse of established structures, forcing the destruction of false beliefs, ego-driven, or toxic situations to eventually make way for new, authentic foundations.
The Art of Tarot
What I love most about the tarot is that it is a closed system with infinite creative possibilities, similar in some ways to astrology, or the mythologies of the world. Just like my “Badass Goddesses,” the tarot gives you a set of stories and symbolic meanings, and as an artist, you can fill in the blanks with your own interpretations, meanings, faces, and symbols.
You can find online quizzes based on your birth chart that tell you what card represents your personality. My card turns out to be the High Priestess, which represents intuition, mystery, the subconscious mind, and divine feminine energy.
The priestess acts as a bridge between the conscious and unconscious realms, advising you to trust your inner voice, pause to reflect, and explore hidden knowledge rather than relying solely on logic.
Here you can see how the High Priestess is represented across all six of my tarot decks, with the one I designed in the center.
Interesting backstory to my High Priestess card… I started designing my deck in early 2001, and chose the background image based on a search for skyscrapers struck by lightning.
The High Priestess traditionally sits between two towers or pillars representing the balance between light and darkness. The buildings I picked for the background were, to me, at the time, just a couple of tall buildings.
A few months after I completed this card, the World Trade Center towers were destroyed and the image I had chosen for this card came back to my mind in a flash of recognition as I saw them burning and collapsing on TV over and over, every day, for weeks in the aftermath of 9-11.
I had no idea when I put the Trade Center towers in the background of my High Priestess card that they would soon become the most recognized and emotionally charged symbolic towers in the history of the world.
Soon after that, I created the “Towers” card depicting their destruction, which you can see in the top row of the image right above this one.
So that’s my long relationship with the tarot in a nutshell. Let me know about yours in the comments!
