project #908426813

[egypturnash]

Pick ten random Tarot cards. Do not weight the selection to favor the Major Arcana; the Three of Cups and the Nine of Wands are just as interesting as the Hanged Man and Death for this exercise. Snag some books on the stuff, read up on varying interpretations of each of the cards, then draw an image for each. Load with narrative and motion; do not weigh them down with dozens of Symbolicq Objeckts in the background of every picture.

Do not repeat. The object of this is not to generate Peggy's Tarot. The object is to use the fractal layers of interpretations these things have had to make some art outside of my usual themes.

Further thoughts:

• Ten may not be the proper number of cards. Maybe seven. Or nine. Odd numbers are More Majiqal than even ones. Five is too few and eleven is too many. Perhaps seven and a half - do seven, then pick an eighth card and do the rough, but deliberately do not finish it.
  
• Do they get any unifying visual elements? Are they explicitly identified as "Knight of Discs", "3 of Swords", with some little graphic device in a corner, or is the viewer left to decide which is which card on their own? Borders? Repeated motifs?
  
• Given the way my drawings have drifted lately, for reasons both internal and external, this will probably end up being "Selections from the Film Noir Tarot". And why not.
  
• Does my random drawing of cards constitute any sort of reading? Will it have different significance if I write a little program to pick a number from 1 to 70-something and map that to a card for me, rather than taking a physical card from a physical deck? And does it furthermore signify anything different if I pick the cards one at a time, days or weeks apart, rather than all of them at once? Should I put myself into any particular state of mind for Consulting The Cards, or just shuffle and fan and pick? Regardless, I'd do the pictures in the order I picked them.
  
• Due to financial considerations, my "tarot deck", if I choose to do my picking physically, will probably be parts of two identical decks of ordinary playing cards, with the court cards edited, and the major arcana created by writing on top of other cards. Ah - but again: will it Signify Differently if I make my 'Tower' by writing 'Tower" on the Ace of Spades than if I make it by writing "Tower" on the King of Diamonds?
  
• If I draw some cards inverted, should I reflect this in the presentation of the final pieces? Note it in the commentary?
  
• Three books, I think, are the minimum number of references for this. At least one should be relatively obscure and possibly given to radically different, revisionist interpretations of the cards. Suggestions are welcome from those who are more well versed in these areas.
  
• In final presentation, do not mock the funny spellings of "magic" that people are prone to use. Final presentation should leave the viewer unsure as to what amount of belief or disbelief I have in the source material.
  

All this from idly replying to something on thaily's lj where she vented about people using "drawing a Tarot card" as an excuse to just draw "my character holding a scythe and looking kewel". Yes, when people show up on my friends-of list, I go browse their lj, and do so occasionally even if I don't friend 'em back.

Comments

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Further thoughts while in the shower:

If I do it 'properly', picking the cards in one sitting with a specific query in mind, what question will I ask?

I think the procedure for doing it may be as follows:

• Acquire/make Tarot deck.
  
• Pick however many cards in the Proper Manner, noting the orientation they have coming out of the pack.
  
• Create a graphic of this, with empty card-aspect rectangles and labels. Put it up on archives that will allow in-progress stuff like this, with a project description. Said description will include whatever question I feel worth asking.
  
• Study up on the first card; read the chapters in my references on that card back-to-back and let them simmer. Draw with a primary and a few secondary meanings in mind.
  
• Display card image; revise the map of the project with a thumbnail of the new image. Repeat until all cards are finished.
  

I still like the idea of the scope of the project being n-and-a-half cards.

I need to do some calculation to decide how many cards to do. It should be enough to be Interesting, but not so many as to take a year to do. Possibly enough to fit into at least the smaller layouts for doing an actual reading. Again, research is required. It should also be enough that I have a decent chance of getting one of the Major Arcana, as they are Cooler than the Minor ones - at least one level of their meaning is much more direct, and the image is more recognizable.

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

See other post. I think a cool project would be to invent one's own personal major arcana. Themes which are relevant to one's life; objects to which one is drawn again and again.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

You know, I've always thought this was the proper use for tarot cards honestly. I'm not big on the mysticism thing but I do have a deck and occassionally will draw a set of cards and lay them out in some fashion, then spend a while thinking about the interaction between the pictures in them and the details in the images and such. It seems to be a good meditation tactic for a mind that tends to wander. At least for me, it gives a good focus for channeling creative energy. I admit though that there must be some small amount of mysticism in it because I'm not sure that a stack of postcards or a pile of collage materials would yield the same results.