Prairie Tarot by Robin Ator

Well, I just ordered one. I justified it by telling myself that I was supporting a local artist. This has the beauty of not just being a rationalization, but true. And - even better - when the full version comes out I can legitimately use the same reasoning.

eta: It's been really cool to watch your style evolve.

rota said:

Thanks for taking a look at this preliminary attempt at the Prairie Tarot, folks. For the last year or so, I've been collecting reactions to the deck.
I thought I'd use this Gametrader approach to see whether the art would break down much at the tiny size of 2.5" x 3.5". It does suffer slightly, and the centering is inconsistent, so any for-real deck would of course have to be a more normal tarot size. So, if you feel inclined to grab a copy of this smaller Gametrader version, be aware of the above caveats. (Did you know that for each deck sold, I make $1.25?)
Think of it as a work-in-progress version -- or a weird sort of collectible, perhaps.

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Bought mine today ...love this deck's progression

tarotmama said:

I was hoping you'd added a few bucks on top of the decks! I love the deck. Reminds me of the Buckland Romani (I think someone else mentioned this too)...

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Agreed! That's one of the reasons why I
am drawn to it, but it stands on it's own too!

No way with that shipping cost.

Pity. Why not a flat rate global priority box ?

Okay, I have my cards now.

My first impression was - These need to be so much bigger!

The art/colors is fabulous of course.

Yes, they are out of alignment. It's not as noticeable with the large black borders though and doesn't bother me so much as it did on mine with the thin white borders. On these cards, the artwork seems to float nicely on top.

The cards are going to chip up pretty easily, as I already have marred mine with some cursory shuffling. It's the black ink on the white cardstock that's chipping off.

The card titles are hard for me to read because it's small, but I need bifocals anyway

So.... my final verdict is I love this deck and I'm happy to have it in any form. BUT I really really hope Robin finds a way to print these larger. These could go as big as the Victoria Regina, IMO and still be fabulous.

I really like the way the black borders give a sense of horizontal space to the cards. LOVE the devil card. A lot of these cards are very subtle. The only ones I'm not sold on are Judgment and Temperance.

Thanks for the report. I'm looking forward to getting mine any day now.

Suddenly I'm aware of many eyes on this tarot project. It's nice to know I'm not operating in a vacuum! Thanks everybody for taking the time to look at this preliminary test run and passing on your thoughts.

The Prairie Tarot comes out of my own experiences growing up in Montana. My background is in the tiny towns on wide plains, next door to Canada - wheat fields, oil derricks, cattle ranches, railroads, cactus - the proverbial Big Sky country. Gravelly, scraped by glaciers, dry, windy. Each card image is condensed out of that. My area was only settled in 1880, following the establishment of a reservation which, incidentally, borders the family farm. My great-grandfather was the first settler in the area.

The time period for this tarot is the End of the West, that space between the end of the Indian Wars and the Civil War, and the modern era - roughly 1875 to 1910. It has to do with things I saw, people I met and stories I heard.

Someone will ask why the Hierophant is a native shaman while Temperance is a white settler. Someone else will ask why Asians or Africans aren't represented. Shouldn't there be more cowboys? Where's Will Rogers, or Annie Oakley, or General Custer, or Sacajawea?
And those questions are indeed reasonable. Another person would have come up with an entirely different set of correspondences.
The simple answer is that the Prairie Tarot is a deck made only for myself, and based on my own background. It's not about history-as-a-whole, and it's not intended as any sort of end-all canonical interpretation of tarot iconography translated into symbols from the American West. I'm fully aware that I couldn't possibly satisfy everyone's sensibilities, so I concentrated on satisfying my own. I hope it can be accepted in that spirit.

Plans call for printing this 79-card deck sometime this year, depending on money, other projects, and the, uh, phases of the moon.

Are you hoping to print the full 78 card deck, then? That would be wonderful!

I think 'theme' tarots always work best if they're done in that same personal sort of way, rather then trying to encompass an entire period of history. It usually ends up feeling like things got mashed in so that nothing would get left out. I absolutely adore this deck that you've made.. I've spent my whole life in very rural Nebraska; so while I don't relate to every image in the deck, the cards as a whole feel like home. If you end up printing all 78, I will be one of the first in line to get a copy!

Could someone post pictures of the copy they bought?

Yes, rota, you have an audience. It's been great to see this deck progress and I'll be one of the people lining up to get the full 78 card set (which I hope you will get printed. Large - like tarotmama suggested).

The colors and shading pull you into the images * swoons *.

I don't usually buy Minor decks, but for $10 and change, I can swallow the purchase even if the printing quality is, meh.