naked hippie tarot

Isabella86

Hello!
I recently found a bunch of photographed portraits my grandpa took of his friends in the 1960's in San Francisco that he intended to turn into a tarot deck. Since he never completed the project, I thought it would be cool to try and get the deck printed. However, there are a lot of gaps that need to be filled. I don't know very much about tarot so I have a lot of questions. Hoping someone here can help me out.
1. I noticed that most decks have "page" and "knight" cards for each suit in the minor arcana. My grandpa only has photographs for a "Youth" in each suit. Would a "youth" be more similar to a page or a knight?
2. He includes cards called "Jove" and "Juno." Could these represent the Hierophant and the High Priestess?
3. He also has a card called "force" could this be the strength card?
4. Based on these inconsistencies (Juno, Jove, Youth, Mountebank for Magician) with most of the tarot decks I've seen, is it possible he was basing his tarot on a specific deck, or was he just really high?
5. How important is the imagery on the cards? Are there elements that must be included or are you pretty free to use what ever imagery you want?

Thanks in advance for your help! I'm so excited for this project and to learn more about the tarot!
 

Tanga

Hello!
I recently found a bunch of photographed portraits my grandpa took of his friends in the 1960's in San Francisco that he intended to turn into a tarot deck. Since he never completed the project, I thought it would be cool to try and get the deck printed. However, there are a lot of gaps that need to be filled. I don't know very much about tarot so I have a lot of questions. Hoping someone here can help me out

Interesting project :) "Naked Hippie Tarot" just caught my eye. Lol.
I can help you a little bit - hopefully soon a Tarot buff will give you more detailed ideas.

1. I noticed that most decks have "page" and "knight" cards for each suit in the minor arcana. My grandpa only has photographs for a "Youth" in each suit. Would a "youth" be more similar to a page or a knight?

Page I would say. Knight traditionally falls into "the young adult just embarking on the adventure of their life".

2. He includes cards called "Jove" and "Juno." Could these represent the Hierophant and the High Priestess?

Hmm. Could be. Or could be Emperor and Empress... (I'd think of them more as Emperor and the Empress, his wife. As Jove was the king of the Gods with Juno his wife...)
Plus Astrologically... Jupiter is associated with The Wheel of Fortune...

3. He also has a card called "force" could this be the strength card?

Yes.

4. Based on these inconsistencies (Juno, Jove, Youth, Mountebank for Magician) with most of the tarot decks I've seen, is it possible he was basing his tarot on a specific deck, or was he just really high?

? I know zero of "The old decks" - Marseilles and pre-Marseilles. It's possible...
Again - a History buff here on AT may be able to say.
You could post this question in the History section of AT asking if there is an old deck following this pattern.

5. How important is the imagery on the cards? Are there elements that must be included or are you pretty free to use what ever imagery you want?

Thanks in advance for your help! I'm so excited for this project and to learn more about the tarot!

Big question - to be answered by someone else fully...

Elemental associations (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), Astrology (Planets and the zodiac), Quaballah (The tree of life with the Sephirot)... are all things that have grown and been included into Tarot along it's history (the 1st two more at it's outset), and today most of us use them/accept them as a usable structure - to varying degrees.
It would be up to you really.

I'd personally prefer to have them included - even if I don't use a lot of it. :).( Lifetime study...).There should at least be elemental associations for me.
So for example - lots of fire in a card that it traditionally watery - wouldn't work. Unless you've decided to change to your own system which you would then detail for the readerin your Little White Book (or bigger book). To use your deck the reader would then have to learn your particular system.
But you have a huge scope for imagery within this - so you could have frogs, fish, water birds, ocean, rivers, shells, tears - or nothing much in it but shades of blue. Depends how you structure the imagery to convey the message of the card...if it were a dragon deck, well, dragons are associated with fire - so you'd bend the imagery to suggest Earth, Air, Fire or Water dragons...
Answers some of it hopefully.
 

gregory

Jove and Juno - I am betting he had a Swiss 1JJ deck - it was very much of the hippie era that it became available EVERYWHERE (mine came form KMart !)

To quote a review:
The deck is a Marseille variant. The most obvious difference between the Marseille and the 1JJ is that Juno and her peacock, and Jupiter and his eagle have been swapped in for the Papess and the Pope. This continues a tradition that began in the Tarot de Besancon. The decks were apparently sold throughout an area that contained both zealous Catholics and zealous Protestants, who didn't want a Pope or a Papess for rather different reasons.

So you are looking at Pope and Popess (Or Hierophant and HP, if you like.)

I agree with Tanga about Youth = Page.
 

reall

WoW what a title!XD lolz :))
congrats on your discovery!^^ too bad your gramps didn't finish it!^^ but hope you do that for him!?^^:))

imo best check on tarot basic here; http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/
and main system RWS, M, CT!:)
and if there is no numbers on cards just go with the feeling!:)) imo jove and juno may be HP and H?:) I think I've read about that somewhere?x,x
just check on card meanings and see does it goes well with description?:)
 

gregory

Those are quite something ! The shape may be a problem - PLEASE don't spoil them by squashing (UGH !) or heavy cropping - if you don't want squarish cards and if many of them are even more "to the edges" like the world's cloth, just centre them, in a plain border !
 

Ingrid

What a cool discovery! I'm still new to tarot myself so won't give any input at the moment but am looking forward to hearing more about this project.

Edit: Also I probably should have mentioned I love the photos.
 

Neely 222

The thread title caught my eye because I remember a bohemian, hippie kind of clothing store years ago called the Naked Hippie. Always made me laugh.

Anyway, this sounds like a really neat project and what a special discovery to find your Grandpa's photos. I love the idea for this project.

One of the first things that came to mind for a Naked Hippie deck was the Empress card, a real earth mother type.
 

reall

oh! those photos looks good as pro!XD
imo you should just post it over white or black background and add title/text at the card bottom?x,x ;)) try downloading different card size templates from Gamecrafter and see what goes best!^^ ;)) and I think they have a square cards too!XD :))
 

gregory

oh! those photos looks good as pro!XD
imo you should just post it over white or black background and add title/text at the card bottom?x,x ;)) try downloading different card size templates from Gamecrafter and see what goes best!^^ ;)) and I think they have a square cards too!XD :))
NOT GAMECRAFTER PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE (postage and customs fees :()

Printerstudio do square cards - though they are only 2.75 inches square which isn't BIG enough, maybe ?