“Il Mondo Magico” at Italian Pavilion

The above picture is a cropped still from Adelita Husni-Bey's video, The Reading (2017), which is one of three artworks showing at the Italian Pavilion at this year's (57th) Venice Biennale. [The card shown appears to be a picture of the head of a woman wearing virtual reality goggles.] This article has a summary, "[the video] features a group of young people discussing their relationships to their homelands.The conversations are fuelled by Husni-Bey’s introduction of self-made tarot cards." A second article has additional details.

A third article provides even more information.

... young students are given a stack of Tarot cards designed by the artist during her time protesting the construction of a pipeline near the Standing Rock Reservation. They are then asked to ask how the word and diagram on the card relates to the world’s problems as they see them, and how they related to our age of information and late capitalism.

Ignore This Test

This is my first attempt to use Javascript.

Click here to get a three-card spread using just the Major Arcana.

Learning as Motivation

One thing I experienced several times during IFJM2017 is that solving a drawing puzzle or problem provided some motivation. (I like solving puzzles which is probably why I enjoy computer programming so much. I also like writing blog posts or emails when I have an idea I want to clarify for myself or get across to others.) Once during this IFJM I got frustrated trying to draw a tea cup and Googled "freehand ellipse" and found a wonderful video and I really enjoyed trying out the suggestions. (The teacher was so good and clear that it made me realize how much more I could have learned in many subjects if I'd had teachers like that.) Unfortunately, after I "got" it, I didn't have any desire to keep doing it. Then there were two problems related to colored pencils. (I'd not used them before but ending up ordering some because I'd bought a tarot coloring book and discovered too late that the instructions suggested colored pencils rather than markers.) The pencils resulted in two drawing puzzles: how to blend and how to draw animal fur. I ended up using blending in one journal entry and animal fur in another. But again, I didn't have any desire to get better at either of these skills.

After the project was over I listened to Roz's video interview and she said getting better at a skill is one possibility for an IFJM project. She mentioned two of hers: one was to get better at landscape painting so she did a project where she drew clouds every day and the other was to get more comfortable with chaos in her journal so she pre-painted pages, used stencils and a Gelli plate, incorporated materials people sent her, etc.

So one lesson learned is that a skill-building IFJM could be a good project for me if I were to choose a skill I really wanted to learn (not tea cups and animal fur or something I think I ought to want to learn) and wasn't likely to get bored with too quickly. I'm actually more interested in abstract than representational art so off the top of my head skills that might be fun would be learning to control acrylic paint better, e.g. making it smooth or not, making abstract collages, or using texture pastes and related materials.

I should point out that for me the need for skill building or for choosing certain materials is more of an iterative process and it's not always clear to me which is the chicken and which is the egg.. The Golden Paint Company's "Just Paint" newsletter often mentions that they've developed a new product in response to an artist's needs. This has made me realize that my mind doesn't work like that. I don't have a clear vision of something I want to create that will require material that behaves a certain way or depends on honing a certain skill.

Thoughts on Using the Tarot (or I Ching)

This project, together with a lot of associated reading, hasn't changed my beliefs about the value of using the tarot. I still don't think it has mystical, occult, or esoteric significance. I don't think it will help you reincarnate at all let alone to a more preferable existence. I don't think it will let you rise to a higher spiritual plane whatever that means. I don't think it will support "the emergence into full conscious of the Divine Spark that lies within each of us, which is stifled by contemporaty education and by life experience reliant exclusively on the senses."

On the other hand, I still believe that thoughtful and judicious use of systems like tarot spreads or the I Ching can help a person to become aware of additional creative, useful, and/or interesting possible answers to questions or solutions to problems he or she might might have. In other words, I think these systems work in a manner similar to the use of Rorschach inkblots or Thematic Aperception Tests.

The usefulness (or not) of these systems is illustrated by the two IFJM blog posts that summarize tarot readings I did and the one post on an I Ching reading.

My question for the first tarot reading was how I could make doing art more fun and a quick summary of my interpretation is, "Stop paying attention to what you imagine others think."

My question for the I Ching reading was what I should do about getting discouraged about the IFJM project and the short version of its answer is, "You aren't getting any sympathy from me; you already know how to handle this."

For the second tarot reading my questions were to summarize the project by asking (1) what worked, (2) what didn't work and (3) what were the lessons learned. The answers were, respectively, (1) no intrinsic shortage of resources, (2) a "laissez-faire" attitude, and (3) if my goal is to attain the particular benefits of an IFJM project, then I should pay more attention to the IFJM guidelines.

Why the Tarot Backstory?

Sometime earlier this year I started to try to avoid the news by reading books and by limiting myself to non-news items on the internet. Around the beginning of March I ran across a review of a recent rather unusual book about the tarot. (My browser history was frustratingly no help in figuring out where I had seen this when I began to wonder.) And then it seemed like a sign that Kindle version of that book is available for free with kindleunlimited so I downloaded it and although I tried to read it, I found it too esoteric and hard to follow to finish. However that made me start thinking about learning more about the tarot as a way to avoid the news.

Then in mid-March there was a second sign: Alice Gregory's article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine validated my general goal. Here's her lede.

In the past few months, elaborate rituals of information avoidance have consumed the lives of people I know. Almost anything, it seems, is better than reading the news. One friend started running; another cooks overinvolved dinners; my mom went hiking in the Andes. I have taken to poring over the often grammatically incorrect half-memories of complete strangers. And I can’t stop. It’s like being on a cozy drug.

After reading of the practical things others are to doing to avoid the news, I thought that a tarot-based IFJM2017 project might be a way I could accomplish something practical along with learning more about a subject I don't take very seriously. That seemed like fun and, as you can read, I enjoyed pulling more of the surprising variety of threads on the internet and creating a backstory starting with this post.

The Current State of Tarot

This is another post on what I learned about tarot while doing this project.

About 25 years ago I bought my first tarot deck, the classic Rider-Waite one, and a book about reading the cards since I was curious why a colleague found them intriguing. More recently I bought the unusual Artist's Inner Vision Tarot deck and associated book. (This deck was produced by 26 artists who each created three of its cards so the cards have a variety of styles.) However I'd only used my decks as intended a few times. Since I hadn't been paying much attention to the tarot world, I was extremely surprised and somewhat fascinated to discover the large size and international scope of the current tarot enterprise.

That enterprise now includes numerous commercial and personal websites; online readings available for free as well as for a price; hundreds of tarot decks for sale (some of which are surprisingly tasteless or even NSFW); instruction, coloring, and history books; online forums with hundreds of thousands of posts; easy to sign up for emailed newsletters and ads; Facebook Groups; professional associations; magazines; courses; conferences; tours; and even a just-begun KickStarter project that hopes to raise more than $65,000 to develop an app to "Transform your world with Tarot as you journey through an interactive map." One could easily spend all one's time getting and staying up-to-date on the tarot world but I don't think that learning much more about this topic is something I want to do.

My Opinion of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck

I really like the iconic and familiar RWS deck. This is not surprising as it is the most popular tarot deck by far and many of the other several thousand decks now available appear to be based on it. I like it because of the appearance of the cards and because of what I've learned of its history including its use of illustrated Minor Arcana.

As for the cards themselves, I appreciate that the illustrations are direct and straightforward; they aren't weird or tasteless as some are. The cards are easy to identify at first glance but also repay closer attention. They are well-designed, which isn't surprising given that Pamela Colman Smith studied under Arthur Dow at the Pratt Institute. Finally, their flat colors and black outlines resembling graphic illustrations seem surprisingly modern.

The deck's history is so well-known that there's no need to repeat it here. I especially enjoy that the illustrations were made by an American woman artist living in England who'd had several shows at Stieglitz' 291 and been part of the Golden Dawn along with W. B. Yeats. I appreciate that it was the first published deck created with Major Arcana labels in English. I didn't realize until doing this project that, other than the rare Italian Sola Busca tarot, it was the first to have illustrations rather than just pips on the Minor Arcana. By the way, surprisingly to me, some of these older pip-and-trump or Marseille style historical decks are growing in popularity as they become increasingly available in quality facsimile editions.

Tarot Spread Project Summary

This morning I used the random.org list randomizer to pick a Three-Card Situation Spread to summarize my project.

The first card -- what worked well -- is the 10 of pentacles. This is a lucky card that shows a sucessful older man. I took this as a reminder that I have all the materials and other resources necessary to be successful doing an art journal.

The second card -- what didn't work well -- is the 4 of swords. This was a reminder that I'd thought of this project as something fun and relaxing and not very structured or well-planned. Well I did have a lot of fun doing online research and reading books but the idea was too vague to lead to a completed 30-day art journal where I got into someone else's mindset every day.

The last card -- key learnings -- is the 9 of pentacles. This card shows a successful woman holding a falcon in her gloved hand. This card reminds me of the instigator of IFJM because of her love of birds and the outdoors. So one learning is that if I want to succeed at an IFJM project in particular, I need to heed the advice of the infiltrator. A standard interpretation of this card is that the woman is at peace within and can enjoy the good things in life alone which is true of me. So I can choose to do IFJM or not next year but if I do choose to do it, I should do it as suggested in order to achieve the benefits.

Maneki-neko Tarot Card

The image on the Ms. Fortune card shows a female neko with a medal containing a five-pointed star hanging from a red ribbon around her neck. She is standing in the door of a cardboard house which has crossed muntins on its side window. She holds one hand up pointing to the heavens and the other down to the earth, providing a link. Just outside her house is a small garden of white lilies and red roses; a yellow butterfly floats above it. She has a charismatic personality. This card represents good fortune and, possibly, wealth.

Pamela and Georgia at 291

Pamela Colman Smith was the first painter to show at Alfred Stieglitz' 291 Gallery. (Previously he'd shown photographers.) She had three displays there from 1907 to 1909 which was around the same time she'd started working on the Rider-Waite Tarot cards. Georgia O'Keeffe's first show at 291 was in April 1916.

The left side of the above picture is a cropped black and white copy of Pamela's Tower card and the right side is a black and white copy of one of Georgia's charcoal drawings from her first 291 show. (I realize the cropping and the conversion to black and white gives a somewhat misleading impression of similarity!)

This post was inspired by information in the 2007 book Modernism and the Feminine Voice: O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle by Kathleen Pyne. I was surprised to learn that Stieglitz had groomed four other woman artists, photographers Gertrude Käsebier and Anne Brigman and painters Pamela Colman Smith and Katherine Nash Rhoades, before he had ever heard of O'Keeffe.

Abstract Tarots

Here is a selection of abstract Tarot decks. And this interesting interview with Peter Rotin includes several of his cards.

Supernatural

I couldn't resist doing a scrapbook page when I found this in Sunday's T Magazine. Apparently this is the year for Tarot everywhere. Even the staid Economist used bespoke Tarot cards on the cover of its issue predicting what to expect in 2017.

Tattwa Cards

Members of the Golden Dawn, including W. B. Yeats, were supposed to make their own Tattwa cards. They were about the size of Tarot cards and appear to have been painted. (I've read that the Golden Dawn used Winsor & Newton gouache for painting cards.)

The user of a Tattwa card is supposed to stare at the card (without blinking) and then close his or her eyes after staring long enough to see the color-reversed afterimage. Then with eyes still closed the user meditates and attempts to astral project through the afterimage.

Main page for W. B. Yeats exhibit. Clicking the "interactives" link leads to a variety of information including some of the Tattwa cards Yeats made.

Mandala

Land of Enchantment

Pigma Sensei black pens and Schmincke Horadam gouache.

I worked on this off and on for three days. I didn't expect it to take so long. Deciding on the details took time as well as finding the reference materials. It can, of course, be more efficient when several similar items are done in sequence. For example, deciding on paper type and size and getting a half dozen identical sheets ready; doing all the sketching; setting out the paints and brushes just once, etc. But for me that can seem too much like a production line.

Card Backs

Perseverance Furthers

I definitely feel that the I Ching is telling me to continue this project, to try not get discouraged, and to remember that there are always difficulties. I took this part of the interpretation of the Judgement to suggest a possible positive outcome of using the Tarot, "When man recognizes the inherent difficulties of life on earth and 'makes himself dependent upon the harmonious and beneficent forces of the cosmos, he achieves success.'"

[The second or related hexagram, No. 39, advises that two way to deal with obstacles are to "... join forces with friends of like mind...." and to use one's inner resources. It also reminds that dealing with obstacles can become an occasion for inner enrichement.]

My favorite line of extra information is this one at the beginning:

The footprints run crisscross.
If one is seriously intent, no blame.

Here is the interpretation. "It is early morning and work begins. The mind has been closed to the outside world in sleep; now its connections with the world begin again. The traces of one's impressions run crisscross. .... If one is serious and composed, he can acquire the clarity of mind needed for coming to terms with the innumerable impressions that pour in. It is precisely at the beginning that serious concentration is important, because the beginning holds the seed of all that is to follow."

Tarot Ankh Loop

Last Wednesday I woke up with a very sore right wrist and I'm right-handed. This had never happened to me before. I could barely hold a coffee cup let alone write or type. I rested that arm as much as I could and it was a lot better on Thursday so I did play around with some ideas for card backs. Then on Friday it seemed o.k. to draw so I used a compass and ruler and did all the ink drawing and writing on the page above. Yesterday I painted it with watercolor according to the suggested colors. (The Golden Dawn was very particular about colors.) Both steps took a lot of time. Luckily my wrist and hand seem o.k. now!

The Rose Card

Subterfuge

We had a nice visit.

Yeats' Two of Coins

The Coins are also referred to as either disks or pentacles and have various representations. The palm tree is a rubber stamp I had on hand.

Flower of Life

Lots of new visual symbols. I'm not very interested in Cabala but I copied the upper picture from the Web because the Golden Dawn was.

Susan and the Mermaid

Yesterday I just practiced signatures similar to the one Pamela Colman Smith used.

I bought this book online and received it yesterday. The biographical notes about PCS by Corrine Kenner are very interesting and detailed. Kenner is a Tarot expert.

Marseille Three-Card Spread

The card outlines, as well as an online reading, are free from the CBD site. (I know that the figure in the center of the World card is usually identified as a hermaphrodite but here it seemed female to me.)

Just Pips?

Apparently some people feel that only the old decks give "true" readings.

My First Talisman

Words in and around the talisman are written in Kobographs.

Card of the Day for 4/1/2017

(Remember you can click on any of the photos to see a larger version.)

Copying the card freehand took a lot longer than I expected! I used black Pigma Sensei pens and watercolor. I bought the tiny wooden stand unfinished at a craft store for less than a dollar and colored it with DecoArt Antiquing Cream.

Cover of New Journal

"Talismans, used in the practice of magic by the Golden Dawn, were sometimes constructed from geomantic, planetary and angelic sigils (symbols created for magical purposes) utilising a wheel of eight radii and placing appropriate Hebrew letters between the two circles, grouped according to their numerical values."

Source.

More From The Archives

Anne was so happy to see the post of her pineapple that she asked me to post another one of her drawings. This one was done on April 14, 2016.

From The Archives

Last April my friend Anne was coming over to my house every day and sketching with ink and watercolor. (Her house was being remodeled so she wanted to get away from the noise and mess for a while.) She'd usually just sketch something from my kitchen. I was surprised she wanted to try this pineapple on April 13, 2016 but as you can see what she wrote was, "No guts, no glory?"

Unfortunately we somehow got off track in the middle of the month. Anyway, since I just found her drawings, I thought it would be fun to post at least one of them before I give them back to her.

Major Arcana

A standard Tarot deck has 78 cards of which 22 are referred to as Major Arcana or Major Trumps. The Devil card is one of these 22. The one displayed here is a replica of the one from the 1910 Rider-Waite deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. When a pentacle or five-pointed star is inverted like the one shown above the Devil's head, it is often considered symbolic of evil.

Note. C programmers may support the numbering of the Major Trumps. The first Major Trump, The Fool, is either given no number or the number zero. The others are numbered explicitly from 1 to 21.

Tarology

The 2012 documentary film Tarology, originally available only DVD, can now be $treamed from a number of sources. This surprisingly enjoyable film features Enrique Enriquez strolling around New York City with his Marseille Tarot deck. Enrique feels very strongly about rescuing the Tarot from the occult.

You can view a short trailer for free from the film's website.

Crome Yellow

Crome Yellow, Aldous Huxley's first novel, was published in 1921, 11 years before Brave New World. Crome Yellow is a humorous satire of contemporary fads and personalities. Here the lady of the house explains the value of horoscopes and related subjects to her newly-arrived young houseguest.

For consolation she dallied with New Thought and the Occult. Her passion for racing still possessed her, and Henry [her husband], who was a kind-hearted fellow at bottom, allowed her forty pounds a month betting money. Most of Priscilla's days were spent in casting the horoscopes of horses, and she invested her money scientifically, as the stars dictated. She betted on football too, and had a large notebook in which she registered the horoscopes of all the players in all the teams of the League. The process of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens one against the other was a very delicate and difficult one. A match between the Spurs and the Villa entailed a conflict in the heavens so vast and so complicated that it was not to be wondered at if she sometimes made a mistake about the outcome. "Such a pity you don't believe in these things, Denis, such a pity," said Mrs. Wimbush in her deep, distinct voice.

"I can't say I feel it so."

"Ah, that's because you don't know what it's like to have faith. You've no idea how amusing and exciting life becomes when you do believe. All that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant. It makes life so jolly, you know. Here am I at Crome. Dull as ditchwater, you'd think; but no, I don't find it so. I don't regret the Old Days a bit. I have the Stars… I have the Infinite to keep in tune with," she waved her hand. "And then there's the next world and all the spirits, and one's Aura, and Mrs. Eddy and saying you're not ill, and the Christian Mysteries and Mrs. Besant. It's all splendid. One's never dull for a moment. I can't think how I used to get on before--in the Old Days. Pleasure--running about, that's all it was; just running about. Lunch, tea, dinner, theatre, supper every day. It was fun, of course, while it lasted. But there wasn't much left of it afterwards."

In a later scene the novel satirizes palm readers when Mr. Scogan, an older male house guest probably intended as a caricature of Bertrand Russell, is disguised as "Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana" and predicts horrible fates at a local fair. "People stood in a queue outside the witch's booth waiting for the privilege of hearing sentence pronounced upon them." (T. S. Eliot alludes to Crome Yellow when he uses the name "Madame Sosostris" for the Tarot reader in his 1922 poem The Waste Land.)

More Background

As I wrote yesterday, I'm using an assumed name.

I'm a retired high school science teacher. I've always thought of myself as a rational person who can objectively consider information and detemine its reliability. I don't think I could be taken in by what is currently referred to as fake news. I also think it likely that my former students and colleagues as well as family, friends, and acquaintances feel similarly about me. Meanwhile however I've gotten interested in using the Tarot and in learning more about its history, including The Golden Dawn, associated art, and related esoteric practices. Since that interest is going to be the focus of my new journal it seems prudent to keep my identity private.

A Bit of Background

My name is Sophronia Joyce. (Actually that's not my real name for reasons I'll explain later.) This isn't my blog either. An old friend offered to post my contributions on her blog. Yesterday's post titled "Details Matter" was the first one she posted for me.

Art journaling has been one of the activities I've been enjoying since I retired. I'm more or less 80 years old and arthritis makes it hard for me to get around as much as I'd like. Of course the Internet more than compensates. Not only can I order books and art supplies online, I can enjoy art-focussed blogs plus the growing number of amazing online digital archives of art I'd not have the chance to see in person even if I could get around more easily.

I'm just about to start a new art journal so that's what I'll be posting about.

Details Matter

One of the most striking -- and to the novice surprising -- features of magic is its meticulous precision. One of the instructions given to the Golden Dawn initiates is: "Above all things in everything occult we must earnestly beseech you to cultivate the greatest possible exactness. Every word should be accurately learned, every symbol accurately drawn." Whatever else the study of magic may be, it is a rigorous discipline of all the faculties of the human mind.

Kathleen Raine, Yeats, the Tarot, and the Golden Dawn, The Sewanee Review Vol 77, No. 1, Winter 1969, pp. 112-148. (Available on JSTOR)