RiccardoLS
Many roads may bring to same destination.
Or maybe there are not such things as the "same" destination.
Anyway, I would like to address the idea of "how to" a Tarot deck may come to be.
Obviously I have no experience in the art process.
Nor I think I can reasonably address those decks that are a lifetime achievement, and that express everything (sometimes in a very personal and touching way) their authors know and feel about Tarot.
"A" Tarot deck, then... not "The" Tarot deck.
The first step in Tarot deck creation is usually an idea.
I call it idea and not a concept, because there is a powerful difference.
An idea has no shape, yet, no structure, no order to it... it is - at most - a seed, or a spark.
An idea may be a concept [example: I would like to make a deck about Peace], or it may be a question to explore [example: I would like to make a deck where I use only 7 Major Arcana, seen each in three different aspects, plus the Fool (that would be me, obviously)] and see where it takes me. Or it could just be a card, striking true, and needing a deck around her to come forward [Example: I imagine a deck where Death is seen as an unborn child (creepy!)]
The idea is sometimes a drive powerful enough to bring a deck to be. Alas, an idea only cannot make a good deck. The idea must change to a concept, and a concept needs much more detail and clarity.
To explain it better, I will show you this idea as an example:
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/la_papessa_b.jpg
The idea of this deck had been to bring to a Tarot deck something like a Silent Hill athmosphere.
Seen a single card out of it, I think it is clear how could, just an idea, take shape and form and become a quite powerful card in her own right.
But this is not enough (imho) to make for a whole deck.
Following the above example one should ask himself: "what is to me, to people, a so called Silent Hill athmosphere?". [remember to write the answer, for added clarity]
What, and why, I want to bring out in the deck?
I have just little experience in the Silent Hill videogames, but I appreciated the movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384537/
The movie moves about a few concepts:
- there is evil
- human do evil (sometimes because, and not even despite) their good intention
- the worst evil of all is what destroy innocence, and turns what's good into a new evil
- evil destroys everything it touches
- there are many kind of justice, even the "justice" of the "devil"
- mercy cames from love
- and while love cannot redeem evil, or cancel its consequences, or move mountains... love can touch also the hearth of evil
Just writing down those concepts brings to my immediate attention two words: justice and devil... (oohhh, two Arcana, it seems). It will probably be necessary to have those two Arcana as "keystones" in our deck concept.
But - a very important BUT - we are not making a deck (even in this example) out of a movie. We make a deck that has the potential to touch the experience of us (writers) and of any person who will use it to read, or to be read.
The concept of this horror deck may then be summarized to a different, broader, more universal idea... a question "how can you repair evil?".
As evil happens... (let's imagine, as in the movie, the most loathsome of evils: violence against a child) what can we do? what shall we do?
A mother can tell her child "everything is gonna all right" and it's a lie, because it's not.
We can take the people responsible and lock them away (protection) or lash upon them with final violence (vengeance). We can even believe in enlightment and redeem them, teaching them a new way (redemption), and maybe even forgive them in time... but nothing of this may ever be able to reverse the damage done: the wounds, the scars, the"evil".
The concept of such a Tarot deck is again a journey thorugh our dark side... through the pain we suffered (and inflicted), that shaped us, made us lesser, and hateful, and full of shit (sorry for the language: moderator may edit if they feel it necessary).
[A deck needs to be measured into his universality. Not because it needs to be generic or ageless, or not contextualized, but because it needs to refer to universal concepts, something we ALL met in our lives, probably from both sides: in the case victim and perpetrators]
Look at the Fool from the Gothic Tarot of Vampires:
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/00_INNOC.jpg
It is the innocence before the reaping.
It is no different to the Eden before eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil [doesn't the Lovers came to mind?]
In any Tarot deck we have a journey.
The most common way to see it is to think a Journey between Fool and World.
In our example we have Innocence in the Fool... and we know that that innocence is about to be broken (it's called life). What would be our World (the end of the journey)?
What do we believe the road end?
In Christianity the end of the journey is salvation by love. Love of God (and our own Faith) is the only thing able to lift the pain of innocence lost... of evil known and felt (and done).
It could be a nice World.
But what if the people using the deck are not Christian?
A deck is not an affirmation of one owns beliefs (even if it cannot be avoided). It is a language, people will be - hopefully - using to ask their questions and look for thier answers, using their beliefs and their experiences.
Maybe the World should just be a question: "can we be saved by love?"
And the Judgement be another question: "can we be saved by justice?"
And somewhere the Stars could be: "can we go further and forget?"
Slowly, our deck concept has been taking shape (and a few cards have already been brought forward in the meanwhile).
The WHY of the deck, is a deck to be used when people feel "wronged", or feels "guilty". There is a road out... one not of negation (a sugar sweety deck: everything's gonna be all right. Sometimes useful, sometimes truly dangerous), but we don't know each one...
Maybe, just maybe, the way out is just the hope that there is a way out.
While we delve on a concept, one thing should have become apparent: the cards in a deck cannot be seen one by one, but they are connected.
I'll show you one of these connection (again between Fool and World) on a much lighter deck... the Pagan Cats.
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/00_Matto_GattiP.jpg
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/21_Mondo_GattiP.jpg
The Fool imagines himself in a better condition.
The World imagines himself exactly as it is.
The real self long to be like the ideal self. And in the World, the real self IS like the ideals self. It's called happiness.
These connections are called structure.
In the Golden Dawn (and our beloved RWS), structure was based on Cabbalah and Astrology.
Other decks have different structures and (sorry) many decks, most decks, are just random, or copy from other decks.
Sturcture is the passage that follows the concept.
It translates the vague and textual expression of the concept into a precise Tarot frame.
The Golden Dawn structure, for instance, assume that the Fool walks himself in two paths (male and female) between the Magician and the High Priestess (it cames from Cabbalah).
Most decks, however, prefer a linear (easier) evolution from card to card. Others choose different routes.
However, if you plan to create a deck, you must seek each Arcana and give him/her a place in this structure, working around your concept, and your needs.
No Arcana is going to be changed (or at least, very few), but they will mute and transform to a specific aspect of them.
What will you do of the Fool, for instance?
Above, I have shown two beautiful different Fools, both (imho) powerful and interesting, and yet they show different worlds.
I personally think that THE Fool is greater than any single Fool.
There are decks that do not choose what to bring forward of the Fool and rely on an archetypical (let's say generic) image. Maybe just an artistical rendering of a copy of the RWS.
These deck are very powerful, because their Fool (or any other cards) becames a clean slate where the reader/querient may project his own version of the Arcana. It can dive in, like on a sponge, with all his intellectual knowledge of the Fool, and have the Fool returned to her like on a mirror.
But (imho) these decks, while they are probably the best reading decks, have little potential to enrich you, as they do speak ONLY with the voices of their readers. Other decks (lesser as reading decks) have the ability to enlarge, nurture and grow your understanding of the Arcana.
And each Arcana to seed the understanding of more Arcana.
To make an example of a non conventional structure, I would take the Tarot of Legends (provisionary title, as the deck is bound for 2013)
In that deck the Majors are organized in triplets (seven of them), each expressing the same concept in the material, intellectual and spiritual plane. The concepts are: "balance/unbalance", magic, knowledge, receptive, creative, love, war.
And that brought to choices. The High Priestess (traditionally firm aligned with the keyword knowledge was called by magic, while material knowledge is represented by the hierophant, etc...)
[exercise: try to place the 21+Fool Arcana is seven triplets. You will see how the decision is not easy, but also as the exercise will really shake your understanding of the Arcana - hopefully for a big fun!]
Anyway... in the Tarot of Legend, the structure says that the concept of Knowledge is Hierophant (the Saint without Guilt), Hermit (the Holy Beggar) and Judgement (the Angel of Destiny/Endings).
Such a structure will force to express the "knowledge" aspects of those Arcana. In the Hierophant, for instance it's the teaching, in the hermit is the research, and in the Judgement is the responsibility.
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/05_Papa_leggende.jpg
A similar work should be done weaving a structure between the Suit, the Numbers, the Courts.
Last part of the deck creation process is to give a visual description to each card.
I always say to myself: keep the cards as questions, never as answers.
I believe this is necessary for a deck to be universal.
Each card NEEDS to be able to be interpreted in MANY ways, not just one.
Not a keyword made image, not a collection of meaning to choose, not a visual cue to the Tarot disctionary in our mind. A card needs to be a window on the infinite that each Archetipe is.
More than everything a cards needs to be a window on the infinite complexity of the human being. Not any human being, but that very specific human being (each of them) that will be read to.
What we risk (imho, it's a risk... and it's what I - personally - see as the mark of a mediocre deck) when creating a deck is to create a bunch of 78 cards, all separate and distinct, done one by one without any common thread expect in the very shallow and obvious.
We have too many decks like that... decks that work because most book (as well) teach to read cards one by one. This card means this, that card mean that.
But if we have clear the concept, and we have clear the structure, when we finally face the cards, they will go deeper.
It's not a rational process... but the same way, it works.
This was not really an "how to", but I hope it could be useful anyway.
Ric
Or maybe there are not such things as the "same" destination.
Anyway, I would like to address the idea of "how to" a Tarot deck may come to be.
Obviously I have no experience in the art process.
Nor I think I can reasonably address those decks that are a lifetime achievement, and that express everything (sometimes in a very personal and touching way) their authors know and feel about Tarot.
"A" Tarot deck, then... not "The" Tarot deck.
The first step in Tarot deck creation is usually an idea.
I call it idea and not a concept, because there is a powerful difference.
An idea has no shape, yet, no structure, no order to it... it is - at most - a seed, or a spark.
An idea may be a concept [example: I would like to make a deck about Peace], or it may be a question to explore [example: I would like to make a deck where I use only 7 Major Arcana, seen each in three different aspects, plus the Fool (that would be me, obviously)] and see where it takes me. Or it could just be a card, striking true, and needing a deck around her to come forward [Example: I imagine a deck where Death is seen as an unborn child (creepy!)]
The idea is sometimes a drive powerful enough to bring a deck to be. Alas, an idea only cannot make a good deck. The idea must change to a concept, and a concept needs much more detail and clarity.
To explain it better, I will show you this idea as an example:
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/la_papessa_b.jpg
The idea of this deck had been to bring to a Tarot deck something like a Silent Hill athmosphere.
Seen a single card out of it, I think it is clear how could, just an idea, take shape and form and become a quite powerful card in her own right.
But this is not enough (imho) to make for a whole deck.
Following the above example one should ask himself: "what is to me, to people, a so called Silent Hill athmosphere?". [remember to write the answer, for added clarity]
What, and why, I want to bring out in the deck?
I have just little experience in the Silent Hill videogames, but I appreciated the movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384537/
The movie moves about a few concepts:
- there is evil
- human do evil (sometimes because, and not even despite) their good intention
- the worst evil of all is what destroy innocence, and turns what's good into a new evil
- evil destroys everything it touches
- there are many kind of justice, even the "justice" of the "devil"
- mercy cames from love
- and while love cannot redeem evil, or cancel its consequences, or move mountains... love can touch also the hearth of evil
Just writing down those concepts brings to my immediate attention two words: justice and devil... (oohhh, two Arcana, it seems). It will probably be necessary to have those two Arcana as "keystones" in our deck concept.
But - a very important BUT - we are not making a deck (even in this example) out of a movie. We make a deck that has the potential to touch the experience of us (writers) and of any person who will use it to read, or to be read.
The concept of this horror deck may then be summarized to a different, broader, more universal idea... a question "how can you repair evil?".
As evil happens... (let's imagine, as in the movie, the most loathsome of evils: violence against a child) what can we do? what shall we do?
A mother can tell her child "everything is gonna all right" and it's a lie, because it's not.
We can take the people responsible and lock them away (protection) or lash upon them with final violence (vengeance). We can even believe in enlightment and redeem them, teaching them a new way (redemption), and maybe even forgive them in time... but nothing of this may ever be able to reverse the damage done: the wounds, the scars, the"evil".
The concept of such a Tarot deck is again a journey thorugh our dark side... through the pain we suffered (and inflicted), that shaped us, made us lesser, and hateful, and full of shit (sorry for the language: moderator may edit if they feel it necessary).
[A deck needs to be measured into his universality. Not because it needs to be generic or ageless, or not contextualized, but because it needs to refer to universal concepts, something we ALL met in our lives, probably from both sides: in the case victim and perpetrators]
Look at the Fool from the Gothic Tarot of Vampires:
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/00_INNOC.jpg
It is the innocence before the reaping.
It is no different to the Eden before eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil [doesn't the Lovers came to mind?]
In any Tarot deck we have a journey.
The most common way to see it is to think a Journey between Fool and World.
In our example we have Innocence in the Fool... and we know that that innocence is about to be broken (it's called life). What would be our World (the end of the journey)?
What do we believe the road end?
In Christianity the end of the journey is salvation by love. Love of God (and our own Faith) is the only thing able to lift the pain of innocence lost... of evil known and felt (and done).
It could be a nice World.
But what if the people using the deck are not Christian?
A deck is not an affirmation of one owns beliefs (even if it cannot be avoided). It is a language, people will be - hopefully - using to ask their questions and look for thier answers, using their beliefs and their experiences.
Maybe the World should just be a question: "can we be saved by love?"
And the Judgement be another question: "can we be saved by justice?"
And somewhere the Stars could be: "can we go further and forget?"
Slowly, our deck concept has been taking shape (and a few cards have already been brought forward in the meanwhile).
The WHY of the deck, is a deck to be used when people feel "wronged", or feels "guilty". There is a road out... one not of negation (a sugar sweety deck: everything's gonna be all right. Sometimes useful, sometimes truly dangerous), but we don't know each one...
Maybe, just maybe, the way out is just the hope that there is a way out.
While we delve on a concept, one thing should have become apparent: the cards in a deck cannot be seen one by one, but they are connected.
I'll show you one of these connection (again between Fool and World) on a much lighter deck... the Pagan Cats.
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/00_Matto_GattiP.jpg
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/21_Mondo_GattiP.jpg
The Fool imagines himself in a better condition.
The World imagines himself exactly as it is.
The real self long to be like the ideal self. And in the World, the real self IS like the ideals self. It's called happiness.
These connections are called structure.
In the Golden Dawn (and our beloved RWS), structure was based on Cabbalah and Astrology.
Other decks have different structures and (sorry) many decks, most decks, are just random, or copy from other decks.
Sturcture is the passage that follows the concept.
It translates the vague and textual expression of the concept into a precise Tarot frame.
The Golden Dawn structure, for instance, assume that the Fool walks himself in two paths (male and female) between the Magician and the High Priestess (it cames from Cabbalah).
Most decks, however, prefer a linear (easier) evolution from card to card. Others choose different routes.
However, if you plan to create a deck, you must seek each Arcana and give him/her a place in this structure, working around your concept, and your needs.
No Arcana is going to be changed (or at least, very few), but they will mute and transform to a specific aspect of them.
What will you do of the Fool, for instance?
Above, I have shown two beautiful different Fools, both (imho) powerful and interesting, and yet they show different worlds.
I personally think that THE Fool is greater than any single Fool.
There are decks that do not choose what to bring forward of the Fool and rely on an archetypical (let's say generic) image. Maybe just an artistical rendering of a copy of the RWS.
These deck are very powerful, because their Fool (or any other cards) becames a clean slate where the reader/querient may project his own version of the Arcana. It can dive in, like on a sponge, with all his intellectual knowledge of the Fool, and have the Fool returned to her like on a mirror.
But (imho) these decks, while they are probably the best reading decks, have little potential to enrich you, as they do speak ONLY with the voices of their readers. Other decks (lesser as reading decks) have the ability to enlarge, nurture and grow your understanding of the Arcana.
And each Arcana to seed the understanding of more Arcana.
To make an example of a non conventional structure, I would take the Tarot of Legends (provisionary title, as the deck is bound for 2013)
In that deck the Majors are organized in triplets (seven of them), each expressing the same concept in the material, intellectual and spiritual plane. The concepts are: "balance/unbalance", magic, knowledge, receptive, creative, love, war.
And that brought to choices. The High Priestess (traditionally firm aligned with the keyword knowledge was called by magic, while material knowledge is represented by the hierophant, etc...)
[exercise: try to place the 21+Fool Arcana is seven triplets. You will see how the decision is not easy, but also as the exercise will really shake your understanding of the Arcana - hopefully for a big fun!]
Anyway... in the Tarot of Legend, the structure says that the concept of Knowledge is Hierophant (the Saint without Guilt), Hermit (the Holy Beggar) and Judgement (the Angel of Destiny/Endings).
Such a structure will force to express the "knowledge" aspects of those Arcana. In the Hierophant, for instance it's the teaching, in the hermit is the research, and in the Judgement is the responsibility.
http://www.loscarabeo.com/files/05_Papa_leggende.jpg
A similar work should be done weaving a structure between the Suit, the Numbers, the Courts.
Last part of the deck creation process is to give a visual description to each card.
I always say to myself: keep the cards as questions, never as answers.
I believe this is necessary for a deck to be universal.
Each card NEEDS to be able to be interpreted in MANY ways, not just one.
Not a keyword made image, not a collection of meaning to choose, not a visual cue to the Tarot disctionary in our mind. A card needs to be a window on the infinite that each Archetipe is.
More than everything a cards needs to be a window on the infinite complexity of the human being. Not any human being, but that very specific human being (each of them) that will be read to.
What we risk (imho, it's a risk... and it's what I - personally - see as the mark of a mediocre deck) when creating a deck is to create a bunch of 78 cards, all separate and distinct, done one by one without any common thread expect in the very shallow and obvious.
We have too many decks like that... decks that work because most book (as well) teach to read cards one by one. This card means this, that card mean that.
But if we have clear the concept, and we have clear the structure, when we finally face the cards, they will go deeper.
It's not a rational process... but the same way, it works.
This was not really an "how to", but I hope it could be useful anyway.
Ric