Tarot of the Heart People
These images are an as-yet unpublished deck of tarot cards. At the time I started painting the deck, I knew little about the cards, and decided to pick a card at random to begin my journey. I picked the Nine of Swords, one of the most difficult and anxious cards of all, so I found myself starting at the bottom of the emotional barrel and working my way up. I studied each card by looking at many, many different decks before I created an image that felt right for my deck. From the beginning, I knew I wanted each card to have an aspect of hope and healing to it, something that not all decks do. People usually approach the tarot during a period of great distress, and devastating predictions or excessive finger wagging are not needed at those times. On the other hand, clearly, some cards are more positive than others - may we all have our many days in The Sun! During the year it took to paint these images, every day that I spent with a card was a day like that card. When I read my cards, no matter how much shuffling or what deck I used, almost always the card that had been the present or future one day, was the card of the past in the next. Tarot cards are endlessly fascinating and ultimately mysterious and I continue my study of the cards and the artists who have painted them. All my card images are painted with oil paints on 7" x 5" masonite or board. I wrote the poems after all the images were painted, and I painted the Major Arcana last.
Here is the Major Arcana: