calling deck creators!!!

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 06 Jun 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

LittleWing	06 Jun 2003
those of you who have published / designed decks - do you read with your own deck??

baba-prague	06 Jun 2003
It's a really good question. But I can't answer for one month. Our deck finally has a publication date (at last!) But the slightly sad news is that it's the 4th July - a whole month after we hoped for (lots of stuff about the fact that we are using a craftsman bookbinder and how much time that all takes - too long a story for here). So - I will tell you on the 5th July what it's like reading with our own deck, because it's one of the motivations I've had in doing the cards and I can't wait to try. In fact, I imagine I'll be up all night on the 4th trying out different spreads :-) We know all the cards and all the elements in them so well (and their contexts - everything is from Prague and we know all the sites - many of which have legends and stories attached to them) that I think it's bound to add a lot of resonance to a reading. I'd love to hear any experiences from people who are lucky enough to have their decks already published.

LittleWing	06 Jun 2003
i ask this because although i am creating my own deck .... im not sure how i will like reading with it. on one hand i think i will love it - on the other i am a bit of a perfectionist and not often happy with my artwork. i hope i can put aside my critical eye - and enjoy it!!

baba-prague	06 Jun 2003
Well, I know what you mean. I hope I'm not going to end up staring at a card thinking "Oh, if only I'd done it THAT way, instead of THIS" while some poor querent sits there trembling wondering if I have stopped talking because I've seen something awful in his future LOL! Maybe it's different because our whole deck is based on photos of Prague, so I think I'll be thinking about the place/s and symbols, rather than the artwork (and in fact, Alex does most of the final artwork - post sketch stage - and while I read, he doesn't as yet). Well, Littlewing I suppose we both just have to wait and see. It'll be fun I think. When is your deck due out? Karen ps - I should, I suppose, confess that I nearly tried doing a spread with our sketches - which we had printed and cut out in the correct size as we did lots of trying out combinations with them to see how they worked together before going on to the final artwork. So a couple of weeks ago I found myself looking at these and decided to try a reading - but they are only little bits of paper, and not even final (we often changed things even after "final" sketches) so I stopped myself. It would be like opening a Christmas present before Christmas :-)

mags@Treadwells	06 Jun 2003
bldy hell littlewing! How can you post 150 times since May?? This is gob-smackingly super-human. Hiya Baba...boy, do I feel silly pm-ing you ..as...if...your..fiiiiiirst...lang.....wage....was...n't....ennnnnggg....lish. Nice one, mate! pm number 2 on its way(oooh!!!in-joke there for celts) keech! Toley! xm

rota	06 Jun 2003
The answer is yes, I read with my own deck. I offer a selection of decks, as it were, to people with questions, and people often choose mine. For anyone here who doesn't know, I self-published the Ator Tarot. I'll admit that I started using it with some trepidation, as though there were magic in every Tarot deck but this one, and that mine would simply read as nonsense. I worried over it, but it turned out not to be the case: I have a few dozen successful readings to strangers with it now, so I know it 'works'. >>>>>>. (You would sorta *expect* a deck designer to read with their own deck, wouldn't you? There are many reasons a person might want to whip up a new never-before-seen Tarot deck, but surely first among them would be the need or desire to work with the new tool? And, you'd pretty much expect that a person's 'own' deck would vibrate sympathetically with them, and provide a certain ease to its use. I'd be interested to hear whether there were designers who didn't use their own decks, and why.)

Astra	07 Jun 2003
Yup. Even though the deck is still virtual, I've built layout programs that let me set up readings on the computer. Since I wasn't willing to call a card complete until it started talking to me, I find that even when I'm reading with another deck, I now visualize my own cards about half the time, especially when I don't get a strong hit from the deck I'm using. It's been a bit strange.

LittleWing	07 Jun 2003
well i have only done a few cards of my deck (you can see this on my website). i suppose i will have to wait and see. it is just i am a proffessional artist - and it is about seperating this head with the tarot head when reading.

Astra	07 Jun 2003
The thing is, as a professional artist, one of the things you are aiming for is to have the work evoke specific things from its audience. (Or maybe not ;-) ) What a "good" Tarot card can do, in addition to this, is to provoke the reader into making new connections. Granted, this depends a lot on the reader, but one test, for me, is that I will focus on different parts of the card as I look at it, and those changes in focus will set me thinking of different things.

The calling deck creators!!! thread was originally posted on 06 Jun 2003 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.