The Wickwillow Tarot formerly the Stained Glass tarot

Sept 20 2013 update: The whole thing is now visible on my website:

http://halweeks.com/wickwillow/ (where it is also linked up for sale at the Game Crafters)

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Hello everybody. I was on here quite a bit last spring, sharing the cards that I was working on (under a different title). I got sort of shanghai-ed in the project and needed to think about it. I also worked hard on putting out a Native American Flute CD, which is behind me now, so I have returned in the past 10 days or so to working on these. With a difference.

20 some years ago I did my first tarot deck...which was for my purposes only, and it sort of emulated a "stained glass" style. I return to that now, with my art skills much advanced.

Last spring, I had sort of forgotten the stained glass paradigm, though...and so the cards have be redone, with that in mind.

There is some variance in how I approach the stained glass idea, however. For example, in some cases the entire card, including the central character, is done up to look like it's rendered in glass. In other cases, the character might be in FRONT of a stained glass background. In some cases, the whole card looks like a painting on glass that has been cut up and grouted. Sometimes the glass is more "contempo" than others...just depending on the feel I want the card to have.

It's my intention to start posting these one by one here, and documenting my thoughts on each card, and as I catch up to where I am in the creation of the images (I'm currently doing the majors, and I'm up thru #8 with a few after that having been designed but not fully rendered) I'll be sharing my thoughts about what MIGHT go into the cards...all in hopes of your thoughts, criticisms and feedback.

My intention is to seek a publisher...I'd much rather go that route than to try to put out this baby myself.

I have some different ideas for the deck as far as the minors go. I personally prefer non-scenic minors...and yet have LOTS of experience with scenic ones as well. I am thinking of offering both...sort of a "Tarot System" where the deck is customizable to the reader's wishes...by offering "booster paks" sort of like kids trading cards. I can see several ways of this working. Further, if I come up with alternative images for some of the cards, i could offer those in limited collector's editions... So scenic and non scenic will eventually be available.

Right now, of course the focus is on the Majors.

By way of introduction, meet my FOOL. (attached).

This fool is so intent on the dog, he's not aware of the immanent disaster that is about to occur. He's obviously TdM inspired...not that that will carry thru the whole deck as you will see as I post more cards...one thing I like about the TdM image is he's the "Low Fool". I like both the LOW Fool meanings and the HIGH fool meanings. I'm excited to begin posting these...I'll probably do a couple a day for the next few days. Right now i'm working on the hermit. The cards will be unnumbered so if you prefer, say Justice at 11 (I prefer 8) you can just put her there! Some of my cards depart from standard imagery, some stick fairly close. Please feel free to comment, I'm looking forward to it.
Mallah

magician card

Next, the magician. Another one derived from TdM....but quite different as well,

In this card and the "fool" card, i attempted to image their garb as stained glass (and i depart from that in the following images, up till the hermit, where I'll return to it.)

The background is a little "Chagall-ian".

You will see a departure from TdM in the next card.

You know, one thing i notice is how different these digital images look on different screens....on the laptop (at least on MY laptop) they are far less brilliant than on the desktop monitor....but the desktop is closer to the original. I'm sure there is a HUGE variance in print.

4/17/12 This is the revised Magician card

Hi Mallah,

I like the fractured look these have...almost like a kaleidoscope or mosaic look rather than stained glass in a way. And their multicolored garb is great!


For The Fool, I'm fond of the way he appears to be entering the croc's jaws while giving the hand to the dog. (I almost went with a similar image on my recent Fool for the new deck I'm working on - great minds and us, haha)

I am curious as you mention the next few deviate from these. Can't wait to see more!

Well, they deviate in that the central character is not "made of glass" as well...but that goes in and out...and sometimes I'm not sure...sometimes it's a character in a stained glass environment...

I'd love to learn to work in a different medium...but this is what I can afford right now. I was just saying that I'd love to work in actual glass or mosaic.

I'll post another card later...

I'm loving yours as well.... you are a true artist...I'm sort of a "wannabe"...

Here is III the High Priestess. As I mentioned, I depart from the TdM style considerably in this image. There is such a wide variety of stained glass styles out there, and i want to embrace them as serves the vibration of the archetype. Here I went ever so slightly "gothic"...not in the modern sense, of darkness and vampires and such...but stained glass is one of the basic basics in gothic art. Here, i've got the "castle window" with the wrought iron candlesticks...lending a sense of austerity to the card...not to mention the Priestess' veil.

She holds in her hand a crystal ball, which which she can seen the reality that exists above and behind her...the moon. Only thru such "reflection" can we currently see what exists there.

Reflection is one of the primary meaning of the card and the number II which is graphically represented by the candlesticks, a substitute for the traditional pillars. Around her neck is a moon choker...which also appears in the moon card...which features a cat instead of dogs...and the cat is also wearing the moon choker, linking the two cards.

This is what i meant that some of the cards are rendered where certain parts are NOT stained glass...here, it's the wall that is not, obviously...and is the High Priestess herself? That's debateable...some of the lines in her skirt suggest that she IS of the glass, and some things look like she is merely standing before the window...(her TOE extends slightly from the plane of the window....)

More tomorrow....

No attachment...here 'tis:

Note: High priestess v.4 is the latest revision (completely re designed) (added Feb 12, 2012)

Here's another: the Empress. Probably won't be her title, tho...she's more of a mother nature type...open to ideas...she's not depicted as a queen or empress...the emperor is more of a cheiftain, as you will see.

Here we see a different style of "stained glass", too. I will be using several. Many glass works are an entire painting etched on the glass and then jointed up with grout. There is so much imagery associated with this card that i like to "get in there".

I need to do work with the stump at the bottom of the harp...it looks like it's not rooted in the ground...it is supposed to be rooted.

Note: Empress v.3 is the revision I did after some critique here in the forum. I think it's a lot better.

My but these are creating quite the stir. One day someone will notice and come in and help me out.

Here's the Emperor...though I want to call him something else...he's sort of a clan chief or something. A "husbandsman" in the old sense of the term. The antler connects him to the stag in the previous card. Further, it's a tool for tilling the soil. He's the gardner..the caretaker of the Empresses growth. He says...yes, but we'll have it growing in straight rows...in nice square plots." He's the architect and framer of thought.

Any ideas for names for my empress/emperor cards that are not so far removed from our own modern experience?

A funny thing happened when I was designing this card. The card was originally smaller...just the center part of the "photograph" and not the frame....but, as i mentioned earlier, I had sort of accidently slipped away from my stained glass paradigm...as you can see by looking at that central part of this portrait. But I liked my image so much that i really wanted to go with it. So I came up with the notion of "framing" him in stained glass. As I was working on it...it came to me how perfectly symbolic that was of "His Fourness". All the little squares and rectangles... and the "frame" itself, with the emperor being the "framer" of constitutional thought, etc. Further, as I worked on the frame, the EMPEROR HIMSELF (my inner critic) was leaning over my shouldeer..."sure you don't want to use a straight edge for that" (I did). "That doesn't look plumb to me...remember, I have to sit in that frame for a long time looking out...I want it to be JUST SO..." LOL.

Anyway, the Emperor, by any other name:

Hmmm, names for them could be Laird/Lady or Himself/Herself? Just thinking out loud here, don't mind me!

To make the harp seem more "rooted", perhaps you could darken the shadows under the stump, and extend some finer tendrils of roots outward, if you know what I mean. Is the harp supposed to be growing roots, or resting on the stump? It wasn't clear to me at first glance which it was.

I think the "fourness" and squareness of the Emperor is spot on, and like the plotted land analogy.

The harp grows from the earth like a tree.

the problem, I think with Emperor/Empress teminology, is we don't really live under them these days, and it doesn't really MEAN anything direct to us anymore....and "president/first lady" is just a joke...

But they are archetypes...i just wanted to get them out of their castles/palaces and into the forests and fields....

I love the term Husbandry for what the emperor is, but if I call him "HUSBAND" it gets lost in the NEW meaning of the word...and it diminishes his role as a caretaker of the Earth Goddess. It's a deep thing, the Emperor/Empress. And Goddess/God is more like it, but I wanted something a little more down to earth than that.

Thanks for your attention. I'm surprised no one else is saying anything on these.