Deadlines & Commitments
in judgement of one's excuses
Last night (now several ago) I finally finished the Judgement card… two months from the day?! I began this year with a goal of completing the deck by 2024, but by September 8th I’ve done FIVE cards and that, friends, is an abominable stat for finishing. I’ve got 44 cards of 78 (not counting Strength, or Fortitude, which I drew twice) and at that rate I’ll have to draw two a week for the rest of the year, plus one. Which is totally doable! It’s just (and here are my excuses, and also an attempt to refute them):
some cards take longer than others! When I draw a card I inhabit it for awhile — its message permeates my life for a time, coalescing as its lesson emerges in some form of growth. I’m afraid that imposing a strict structure (a stricture! —Omigod sometimes this language gives exactly what I want from it—) will inhibit my understanding the cards in the deeper way I've been working towards.
I’m both ready to be done with it and not sure what to do with it when it’s done. Part of my goal this year was also to find an agent, or a publisher, who could help me answer that question as well as push it along (my need for external pressure, the ever-plight of the attention-wandering freelancer). Needless to say… I have not. But that answers the question of what to do when it’s done now, doesn't it…
& yes I see that by requiring myself to finish by the end of the year I am embodying that external pressure I claim to crave
but really it’s that I am afraid of endings and failure and OH GOD WHAT NEXT
back to the first point, if I *do* go deep, but in a shorter time frame, I am afraid I will become a sage-burning, crystal-rubbing, chakra-tuning mystic madwoman circling the drain of pragmatism and circumspection (go for it! you say)
truly, it is a question of whether I am psychologically capable of producing the kind of work I expect of myself in the next 3.5 months. But I am nothing if not stubborn AF, particularly regarding commitments made to myself, and I would be ashamed not to attempt a challenge merely because I fear the required Push of it. Plus, I really do want to clear space for whatever’s coming, unknown though it is (this is after all the whole arc of the archetypal Tarot journey).
So ok, I’m committing, god-willing-and-the-creek-don’t-rise… & publicly, for that extra fear-factor if I fail. You read it here first! A complete set by 1/1/24.
When I started drawing the deck I set some rules at the outset, both to constrain the chaos and to provide freedom within the restraint: I’d use the same limited palette (CMYK, just 7 colors when layered) & the same process for each (Adobe Fresco, vector to screen print), but I could draw however I wanted within those lines. So some of the cards come more from my graphic-designer brain and others are more sketchy… the cohesion really resides in the colors, something I’m also learning to deploy in my comics.
I have rules, or rituals, for the process (pursuit) of each card too — I draw one at random from one of my decks, and if it’s a card I’ve already drawn I draw another — but if it’s a new card I'm not allowed to pick again, because sooner or later each card will come up and each has its lesson and relevance, regardless if I “like” it (the only time I’ve broken this rule was when I was hopelessly stuck on the Two of Cups and after several weeks drew two other cards for “context,” or distraction). Then, R&D…
— Some cards are fairly traditional renditions, others depart to my own interpretation — I create the finals on three transparent layers in Fresco to mimic the three-color screen print each is intended for (the layering is rather technical and I like how it makes my brain hurt, so good)—
— I add the lettering, clean up the layers and export the image to my phone, then open the Notes app and try to write a caption that encapsulates my understanding of the card in a pithy, poetic (but sugar-free) play on words — I add a selection of random hashtags and wonder how anyone ever gets Instagram-famous for art — I post the card, refresh the screen until I get that hit of validation-dopamine from the first few admirers, throw my phone on the bed in disgust (with myself, with Instagram, with How We Are), pick it up, seek more validation, reread the caption, edit if necessary and finally (some time later) put my reference cards back in their respective decks and choose a new card. Repeat. Thirty-three more times this year.
10 IDEAS/DAY (cards I already envision but have yet to draw):
1 — Death, the Danse Macabre 2 — the Empress, manspreading with a cornucopia of croissants and cakes 3 — the Seven of Swords, a Coyote/Trickster tale 4 — King of Cups, the Alchemist 5 — Knight of Pentacles, bull-riding backward 6 — the Page of Swords, Hermes the messenger 7 — Six of Swords, mother and child embarking into the new unknown 8 — Eight of Pentacles, gestation 9 — the Hanged One, on the diagonal 10 — the Devil: mutant Minotaur, enraged Medusa, seductive satyr, perverted Pan.
COMICS ABOUT:
This is not one of those “and then the world became bright again” kinda stories — it took (has taken? is taking?) a long time, thousands of miles walked and many more boxes of tissue — I wore only black for a year and a half — not in a public display of mourning but because color was one less thing to consider. I drew the Ace of Cups (that font of awe, that vessel of unbridled delight) deep in a Dry January numb, counting down til I’d let myself drink again. But choosing the cards randomly (rather than starting with the Fool, or an Ace, and working them in sequence) felt (feels) like performing an ongoing, in-depth reading for myself and has allowed all kinds of synchronous connections and insights to arise. Some cards I've balked at (both the Three and the Ten of Swords were completed within a day as I didn’t want to stay under their influence — while the Tower took weeks + a retreat + the death of our dear cat Bobo to reckon with), but all have come at the “right time” — because it is in our interrogation of the cards and their symbols that meaning is made.
DRAWING CARDS
I’m showing it upright so you can get the full effect of Lettie Jane’s incredible artwork (Many Queens is one of my favorite decks, ever, and an inspiration even before I moved to Portland, where I now get to take classes from Lettie Jane at the magnificent Ulna Studio) — but I mostly want to talk about Death Reversed, as that’s how I pulled it and is, I think, an interesting way to think about the card overall.
Contrary to popular opinion, Death is not the scariest card in the deck — I’d rather pull it than the Tower any day. Another, less weighted word for it might be Transition, as it straddles the space of death and rebirth, growth and decay. The grinning skeleton reminds me that it is we who make such arbitrary distinctions — for what is decay but another kind of bloom? Endings of any kind make way for the beginning of another thing. Upright, the Death card states this like a fact: here is an end, and here is beginning. In a way, it’s the truest thing we know. Reversed, I think it becomes a question, and more real, if not more True: where are you (your soft animal body— & that’s the last time I’ll quote Mary Oliver here) in relation to this most natural cycle? Are you resisting it, forcing it, putting the cart before the horse? Do you desire growth without grief, birth without pain? Are you plowing your resources into life support at the expense of that which waits to be born? Are you fixated on what has gone before, is your room full of ghosts, are you shut to what waits for some space to be made to come in? Or are you pushing for the door, endlessly ending it premature, in love with the first blush but never the maturation? I’ve been guilty of all these modes, and know too well that traumatic loss heavily complicates one’s relationship with the cyclical nature of Death — but I know too that part of my “healing” (I resist that word, if not the process) involves becoming more comfortable with the “both/and” space of renewal, reinvention and rebirth (as well as the obvious, continuing to face my highly logical fears of untimely endings).
Inhalations
I’m using the Four of Cups to look at addiction and recovery (or vice versa) and went googling to see if anyone else had done so — somewhat surprisingly, no one demonstrably has — but I did come across this interesting read of the Cups’ relationship to alcohol use/abuse.
If you’re an art-maker (of any kind or to any degree!) in Portland I highly recommend the workshops of Lettie Jane and Jolyn Fry at the aforelinked Ulna Studio, which is the big brick storage building with the Doc Martens ad on the east bank (Cole — Ulna’s third instructor— is probably pretty cool too but I haven’t met him yet). Being in class/conversation with them has hugely helped clear the cobwebs from my mental art-space — and the community they have created feels like home. Check out Jolyn’s show at Radius, Ulna’s ceramic sister-studio (get it?!), through September.
Blue Diamond Spicy Dill Pickle almonds! Thank me later.
Lifelong Learner’s Corner (reversed:)
I don’t know how many times I have to learn to not drink a full cup of diesel coffee after 2pm but here we are.
WRITE IT DOWN or YOU WILL FORGET
staying up later does not mean you can just sleep in later to make up for it, we’re not 17 or 27 anymore
always carry snacks, they help take the edge off the caffeine pazzata. Might I suggest… BDSDPA ?
And So
I wrote too much again — it’s the coffee? Sorry! The downstairs is still in shambles, but drywall is Monday and next weekend I’m painting (the walls). Trevor gets keys to his apartment (also) Monday and it has a kitchen (imagine that) so … at least one of us will be able to enjoy a fried egg… but who has time for regular meals when there are 33 tarot cards left to draw? I got this!
If you’re enjoying these soliloquies, please pass it along! Mwah! 💋
Thank you for the shout outs on my classes and the deck. You are amazing and I can't wait to see the flood of tarot cards come forth.