Minimalist decks?

Gaston D.

Nemia said:
Minimalism of laziness and minimalism of sublime wisdom - not the same.
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You're right about this, of course, and my original post wasn't mean to infer that all minimalist decks are inferior or lazy - just some of them. (Then again, there are certainly "maximalist" decks that are inferior and/or lazy as well.)


Le Fanu said:
It's when you get the High Priestess with, say, a crescent moon and a pebble or something that I really can't read it and feel that something has been stripped too far. I need layers...
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This pretty much encapsulates my own problem with some (again, not all!) minimalist decks. Such decks rely so much on "intuition" and "bringing your own experience" into a reading that one may as well be reading with a stack of blank index cards - at some point it stops being Tarot and starts being something else (like an oracle deck perhaps? And to be clear, I have no problem with oracle decks - they're simply a different tool I use sometimes. But generally they don't have the same resonance and depth of meaning to me as Tarot decks do.)

And again, I very much appreciate the variety of responses to my original post. It was never intended to provoke a mass pile-on against minimalist decks at all and I value hearing opinions from both sides of the debate.
 

Krystophe

"Minimalism of laziness and minimalism of sublime wisdom -- not the same" is pretty much the idea I was aiming at in my own clumsy way. I did try to sum it up at the end with "not all minimalist decks are created equal," but Nemia said it better.
 

Madrigal

barefootlife

I feel like I'm the only person really in favor of minimalist decks in this thread :laugh:

I don't think there's anything wrong with making decks more accessible to the general public - moar readers, moar better, etc. The RWS leaves me cold, but that doesn't make it unworthy of study - I just don't like reading with it. A lot of people also feel alienated by traditional decks, and a lot of more minimalist or decks with significant changes to the RWS formula are coming out of the queer community and other intersectional space.

The Wild Unknown brought me back to tarot because it was a deck I finally connected to. No people, no distracting expressions of wealth over poverty, no heteronormative blahdeblah. Even fully admitting she fell vastly short on her court cards, I disagree that there's no meat in the WU. It's just subtle meat, in the patterns of background lines, the spare use of color, the way it's easy to reinterpret meanings of the cards based on the spartan lwb (the actual book is a letdown, for sure). Yeah, it's definitely a deck that forces intuition, but there's more there (at least to me) than I think it gets credit for amongst more traditional circles. Plus, what's not there is as important as what is there.

Of course, some minimalist decks do this sloppily, or not at all, paring down too much. But that baby step is what some people need to enter the tarot world.

As for the trend toward seeing tarot as a somewhat psychological tool...I'm certainly coming from a biased perspective, since that's what I generally use reading for, but I don't think it's a bad thing on the whole. There's nothing wrong with fortunetelling, but opening up the purposes of the cards brings in a new audience, which allows for a thriving community that produces new work, creates new voices, and supports artists. And when those people come to a community like this one, the realm of possibilities in decks opens up infinitely, and they find new opportunities to study traditional tarot that aren't just the super-polished 'pay me dollars to learn the tarot in a week' Biddy method.

No deck is for everyone, basically. But if you can look at a Marseilles pip and take a whole meaning from that, you can do the same with a minimalist deck.
 

banbha

Madrigal said:
I was going to link this one. I've got it and really enjoy it. The plants themselves have been carefully chosen for the cards they represent and despite the minimal imagery there is a wealth of material to draw from in relation to the plant and the traditional meaning of the card.
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Thanks, this is nice to know. :) I had a good feeling after seeing some of the cards and associations she had made and I ordered it soon after. I've been reading the .pdf version of the guidebook and am really looking forward to getting the deck.
 

banbha

barefootlife said:
I feel like I'm the only person really in favor of minimalist decks in this thread :laugh:
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You are not alone. :D

Of course, some minimalist decks do this sloppily, or not at all, paring down too much. But that baby step is what some people need to enter the tarot world.
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I hadn't thought of it that way, but perhaps it is less (seemingly) intimidating. And of course there are decks that go to the opposite extreme. Dense. Everything but the kitchen sink.

If minimalist decks don't work for some, I don't think it makes them = bad or harmful to tarot as a whole. Judge each deck on a case by case basis, based on its merits and flaws as an individual deck. The cream always rises to the top in the end.

No deck is for everyone, basically. But if you can look at a Marseilles pip and take a whole meaning from that, you can do the same with a minimalist deck.
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Truth.
 

Le Fanu

Of course nobody is dismissing anything here - or saying that minimalist decks are not worthy etc etc . I just think the OP hit upon something interesting and significant - there are quite a lot of these decks around right now and it's fascinating to reflect on why. However, I really would dimiss the idea that it's a money making thing for creators - I really wouldn't go that far. No tarot is really a money-making thing, let's face it... We're in a community where you see people doing their thing for love. At least that's how I see it and that's what makes me keep coming back to tarot and seeing what new decks are being done.

Yet I do wonder (really) if a beginner would be welcomed - baby steps and all - into tarot with a seriously pared down minimalist deck. Where did that idea idea come from? Surely a beginner would look around and see other decks replete with symbolism, ponder their lone feather and rib bone on a beige background and wonder whether this really is the deck for them... If someone's first deck was a largely empty one - however profundly done - really? That really would be very difficult for most people. I would have thought that most beginners would want something they can point at and interpret.
 

Krystophe

Le Fanu said:
Of course nobody is dismissing anything here - or saying that minimalist decks are not worthy etc etc . I just think the OP hit upon something interesting and significant - there are quite a lot of these decks around right now and it's fascinating to reflect on why. However, I really would dimiss the idea that it's a money making thing for creators - I really wouldn't go that far. No tarot is really a money-making thing, let's face it... We're in a community where you see people doing their thing for love. At least that's how I see it and that's what makes me keep coming back to tarot and seeing what new decks are being done.

Yet I do wonder (really) if a beginner would be welcomed - baby steps and all - into tarot with a seriously pared down minimalist deck. Where did that idea idea come from? Surely a beginner would look around and see other decks replete with symbolism, ponder their lone feather and rib bone on a beige background and wonder whether this really is the deck for them... If someone's first deck was a largely empty one - however profundly done - really? That really would be very difficult for most people. I would have thought that most beginners would want something they can point at and interpret.
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Exactly this. I may have gone off onto a tangent in response to another poster's reference to some artists' lack of "a full arsenal of artistic and symbolic competencies" because that happens to be my usual reaction to minimalist art in tarot decks as well. The truth is, Nemia's references to Mondrian and Rothko were apt -- in as far as they went -- but the fact remains that these are examples of exceptional artists who we recognize as masters. But not all artists are, or can be, by defininition -- "exceptional." And so, without wishing to impugn the motives of any artist who undertakes the rather daunting project of creating a tarot deck, I can only observe that most minimalistic decks are not "exceptional" in their execution.

I agree that "minimalist decks" are unlikely to be a money-making thing (although the observation in another post that tarot is still not "fully within the public consciousness" seems to be in stark contradiction to the variety of tarot decks available at my local Barnes and Noble). But I just can't see a stick-figure deck, or one illustrated by childish (as opposed to childlike) crayon drawings as something to take as seriously as even a non-illustrated-pip Marseilles deck. The lack of thought and effort stubbornly refuses to be explained away. To anyone who can read something coherent from that "lone feather and rib bone on a beige background," my respects. But speaking for myself, I want something more.
 

euripides

barefootlife said:
I feel like I'm the only person really in favor of minimalist decks in this thread :laugh:
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Lain_82 said:
Wow, this quickly turned into a "minimalist decks are worthless" kind of thread!
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That certainly wasn't my intention, either (and hence my mention of Rothko); rather to question what constituted minimalism and to challenge some of the current interpretations of it.

I'm a bit of a TDM fan; I think they do constitute a minimalist deck. Everything you need, nothing you don't; others would find the pips too spartan - mind you, there are plenty of pip decks I don't like to read. *go figure* . Maybe it's that patina of age.

I guess we have to be wary of dismissing a thing on the basis of poor implementations or interpretations of it.
 
Is this a real deck? Anyone know what deck this is?