Tarot still not embraced by all.

[Myrrha]

Hi Ciro
It is a huge loss for them. The angels or Christian-themed artwork would have been filled with light and creativity. How sad that now we won't get to see them!

I don't think it is a huge number of people who are this idiotic, especially in the art world so I hope you are not worried about your involvement with tarot limiting your future prospects.



--Myrrha

 

[Sphinxmoth]

This may not come as a great surprize to many of you, but for me, not being a reader, I haven't up until now experienced how Tarot is still negatively perceived, feared, rejected .... whatever. Yet twice in last few days I became aware of it first hand.
I was asked (offered) the opportunity to do some Christian themed work. Angels, more than likely, or other spiritually inspired scenes. But the offer came with a less than discreet suggestion that it might be conditional to discontinuing my tarot related work. The irony of that of course is that some of the images, my new Temperance card for example, (just a work in progress) would fit happily into both camps. Go figure.

The second was related to my movie project. I had wondered why a faculty member who was initially enrolled to serve as a coordinator between myself and the students involved in the project, had been lets say less than cooperative. To the point of being completely uninvolved within a short period after work started. I assumed it was either laziness or complete lack of professionalism and simply worked around her. I discovered just today through the head of the department and after the project was completed, that it was the subject of my movie project and a clash with the person's religious beliefs that was the issue.
Amazing in this day and age.

For your refernce here is a link to the movie in question. http://vimeo.com/1076456

Remarking on your first example, I can only observe how much shallowness is revealed by persons whose only requirement of their belief system is to be able to add gorgeous angel wings, and beautiful glowing golden light effects (or presumably non-threatening bunnies, flowers, hearts, maybe American flags for good measure) to any pre-existing image (even one considered ominous or "scary" up to that point) to make it acceptable/palatable to their concept of how things "should" be viewed. Just a reflection of people who believe they have cornered the market on Truth and everyone else should just (will unquestionably) go to hell. Those are very low(brow) standards to live a life by.

It's a fear-based thingy. But sprinkle some attractive, distracting glitter on it to make it go away, or at least take the edge off, and that's good enough. Now that's just sad.

They want the power of tarot, the auspicious divinity of the universe that it makes accessible, but they don't want to say (to admit) they believe that power even exists. Or, more crassly, they want simply to cynically and heartlessly tap into a market of people who long for such things. There is a word for that, can't think what it is, starts with an "h", I think..

The behavior of the faculty member can be reduced, cruelly, to single terms. Fearful. Narrow-minded disapproval. Incurious. Intolerant. Bereft of wonder. Sad.

 

[re-pete-a]

The feeling here is that their judgement is on the use of your selection of the word DIVINE, THEY are the ONLY ONES that can lay claim to that meaning , and upon the pools of shed blood they intend to keep it that way.
________
Masturbation hand

 

[RufusJ]

I'm not surprised that the Christian oriented group would try to put stipulations on what you would create in the future. It may be different now but years ago if a Christian were to bring a book in the evangelical field, it would almost impossible for him to be published if it were discovered that they also published in the Catholic field as well. So of course, someone bringing out angel themed cards to be sold to the Christian consumer would be anathemized if they also produced tarot or oracle cards. Dabbling in divination is a sin, you know and creating tarot cards would be enabling a sinner to consort with demons. Besides, if you stopped making tarot cards, the Christian group could claim that you had seen the error of your ways, gotten saved, or however they wanted to spin it. You'd be a trophy for them and it would increase the sales of your Christian themed cards.

There might be a way around it though and that is to create the cards but use a secular publisher that also sells to the Christian market, such as Harper Collins, that would put no stipulation on what you produced in the future.

rufusj

 

[Umbrae]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It is unfortunate, that the way this is perceived by government, and the people that are the government, is that any religious practice is allowed as long as we agree with it.

And if Art and Spritual practices can be quashed with one fist...

Keep up the good work Ciro...

 

[memries]

The Temperance card is very beautiful and uplifting and made my heart feel happy !

The video is wonderful as well. The Wise men following the Star were using Astrology ! Some people are so unknowing it makes one wonder.

I do not own any of your decks but after that movie and card I will very shortly. I saw a deck the other day in Chapters with your name so I know it is there waiting for me.

 

[Merenwen]

I love that card! It is so beautiful, breathtaking. I started to get lost in it (that's a good thing!)

It is such a shame people are still narrow-minded, but unfortunately it is still abundant.

 

[Cactus]

Ciro,

The Temperance card is beautiful. And so is your ToD which I received last week!

I am disheartened to hear about instances in which people just don't take the time to understand things but they can criticize or imply their disapproval.

Do they really think they will change your interest in creating tarot decks? They're crazy.

I thought I'd never be able to tell my in-laws (who are like best friends to me but are majorly Catholic) about my Tarot interest. But my mother-in-law saw a tarot book lying around (I forgot to hide it!) and asked me about it. Well, I just told her the truth (because I couldn't get away with anything else) and she shocked me - she said that her aunt was into "the cards" as she called them.

She went on to say that her aunt and friends would gather around the table after dinner and "see what the cards have to say." There was an incident where her aunt drew cards (don't know which ones, but can probably guess) that indicated that they'd all be at a funeral. A week later it was her brother's (My mom-in-law's father) funeral they were at! So MIL was accepting but non-judgmental because she was honest in that she doesn't really understand tarot cards and how they work.

If everyone could be like that!

Kathy/Cactus

 

[Mabuse]

It is unfortunate, that the way this is perceived by government, and the people that are the government, is that any religious practice is allowed as long as we agree with it.

And if Art and Spritual practices can be quashed with one fist...

Keep up the good work Ciro...

Well this issue cuts both ways. As a First Amendment advocate, I believe in the strict separation of church and state. I would therefore question the constitutionality of government resources promoting what might be seen as a religious view of Tarot cards. Ciro Marchetti's work is indeed impressive and beautiful but is it appropriate from a constitutional point of view to use government resources for this purpose?

 

[cirom]

Ciro Marchetti's work is indeed impressive and beautiful but is it appropriate from a constitutional point of view to use government resources for this purpose?

I don't wish this thread to get too seriouse. I'm certainly not affected by what happened merely suprized it. I hardly take on commisions anyway unless a project is of particular interest. I'm fortunate in that at this point in my carreer I can do pretty much the work I want to do. I don't have either the time or the intertest (at least for now) to do the Christian work that was offered, and out of principal would definately not do it if it came with those sort of conditions. My point (using Temperence as the example) is a how silly the whole thing was when in fact the images, Tarot or Christian might very well be similar. Judgement and the Heirophant also come to mind.

Once again my thoughts on this are really one of surprize and sympathy to the numerous readers out their who presumably might be affected or limited in some way by how Tarot is obviously still precieved. Any extreme views that include insistance on being right and require opposite ones to be restricted are scary.

As for constintutional considerations regarding my movie project. In theory I guess you're right. I'm sure that had the movie been a Christian themed one, it would ironically have raised even more questions. But that argument could be applied to so many things that might then be viewed as "promoting" a particular historical, political, sceientific point of view. Where would one stop or for that matter ever manage to start.

Nevertheless in the case of my movie its a mute point. One because offering the project to be done with college resources was actually a favor to them, so that some students might have a "real" project with some exposure to put in their portfolio. I certainly had other options. The college embraced the idea. Secondly the college's involvement actually proved to be minimal, because of scheduling and limited access to the most appropriate computers and software, in fact over 90% of the project ended up being done in my house. Thirdly the college in question is a private one, so no government resources were wasted. The government is free to waste them on other things instead.