Welcome to the first Tarot Jam blog hop. My regular readers will note that this is the second Tarot based blog hop that I am talking a part in. The other one, the Tarot Blog Hop, happens a week from today.
As always in a blog hop, if you like, you can navigate the hop though the Previous and Next links; and if there are any breaks in the hop chain, you can use the Master List link to hop over the broken sections.
The theme of this blog hop is: Getting to know me as a Tarot blogger.
....I am not sure that I have ever done this subject on this blog. If I have, my apologies to my regular readers. If I haven't, I apologize for not doing it sooner. And as always apologizes for me being an opinionated angry blogger.
My introduction to Tarot came in 1984. I may have read snippets about the Tarot before that point, but I had never actually see a Tarot deck in the flesh (so to speak). And quite honestly, I couldn't get a Tarot deck to work for me to save my life. (Therefore, I used "Norse" runes for years instead.)
When I stumbled my way into Hathoor Temple (1992)---a sort-of Golden Dawn lodge (no actual connection to the original Order), my superior forced me to create my own Tarot artwork. At the time, I did not see the point. And let's be honest, I am a terrible artist--the only thing worse than my writing is my art.
But the Tarot did start working for me, so I guess that my superior actually knew what he was doing. And that is about how far as I ever advanced in the study of Tarot. I know the bare minimum about Tarot.
A couple of years ago, when I started doing the Tarot Blog Hop, I started to create my own set of Tarot cards---simply so that I did not need to worry about copyrights and obtaining permission to use images of other people's cards. My cards are....well, let's go with fugly as a description (I think that they may actually make people's eyes bleed.)
There are times I like to pretend that I am going to finish the artwork for the current Tarot deck that I am designing (and we all know that is not going to happen), and actually find a way to get it published (yeah, no legitimate publisher is going to touch it), and sell a few copies (and by a few, I mean none at all).
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| Mad Uncle Morgan (Morgan Drake Eckstein) |
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| Fool from Mad Uncle Morgan's Political Tarot |
What are the main symbols of the existing versions of the card?
What is the card's central meaning?
How does the card fit into the rest of the Tarot deck?
And what are my personal symbols to convey the card's meaning?
As the example shows, I get an F on all four questions, as well as an F for being able to draw anything better than a stick figure.
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| Some questions to ask when designing a Tarot card |
Thanks for reading, and consider checking out some of the other posts in this blog hop---posts actually written by people who know what they are doing. Have a good day.
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8 comments:
I love this story.... who cares whether or not you are good at art, you obviously love Tarot, which is all that matters!
How refreshing to read you! It's a no bullshit style of writting! I love it!
I love those questions! Thanks!
Well, all I can say is that your art far exceeds anything I could produce so I think you are doing fantastic! :) Thank you for this look into your process and I admit to wanting to hug your angry blogger self (your description) and tell you not to apologize for anything (other than overt rudeness or cruelty to sweet puppies) :)
Those questions would be good for those of us who aren't deck designers, too. They'd be useful in getting to know any deck, really.
I absolutely love your thoughts on how Tarot works. Bloody brilliant! LOL! <3 x
Your questions for coming up with an image are great! Keep drawing. Who cares what it looks like? The process is priceless, and one man's fugly is another man's punk rock. Plus, I like your symbols for The Fool.
I like your Fool, too! Especially the uncovered manhole. Black and white decks always catch my eye. I hope you do finish it one day!
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