Gilded Tarot -- Suits and Correspondences

[souljourney]

Ciro,
Thanks so much for answering those questions.
I'm sorry you feel the need to not participate as much in the forums. I hope you will at least pop in on our group once in a while, because WE feel your deck is worth STUDYING.
SJ

[Catpaw]

Thank you Mr. Marchetti for your response. I appreciate your insights that help me to better understand the Gilded Tarot, a lovely deck -visually stunning challenging me to use my intuition, grasp an appreciation for the mechanical/scientific advances in the cards, and interpreting the symbolism.

I look forward to your new deck.

Catpaw

[lunakasha]

Thank you for posting Ciro....

I had often wondered about the "pronged" tips of the wands, so it was very interesting to read your comments on this.

Originally Posted by cirom

Unlike many others decks where the wand is depicted as an all natural staff of wood with leaved buds. In mine, once again is a balance, the natural medium of wood, carved and symbolically decorated with leaves. Yet balanced once again with the man made elements of threaded metal that extend beyond decoration and hint at some function. The torc shaped head is a common item, an amulet from Celtic art, and is in fact used to this day as a bracelet with claims to some energy force with healing properties.

As you know, I absolutely LOVE the pentagrams in place of the "traditional" pentacles and agree with your logic in focusing more on the symbolism of "five" rather than actual shape....brilliant and original!!!

Like souljourney mentioned, I do hope you will pop in here once in awhile and post when you feel like posting. I am sorry to hear of your negative experiences, but I hope you know that you have MANY fans here who value and respect your work, your talent, and your voice as a forum member.

Luna

[Shining_Moon]

I would like to reiterate what the others have said. It would be a great shame indeed if you felt that you had to go becauseof the attitudes of a very very small minority.

However, I do take your point that you may feel that critiques of your work may be somewhat slanted because of your participation in the forum.

All I can say is keep up the good work! I have just seen the new updates to the ToD. They look brilliant - am very much looking forward to getting my hands on them.

Blessings

Vix

[AmberWolf]

I didn't realised before reading this thread that the designer of the Gilded Tarot was a regular here.

Thank you a lot for your answers. The blue gems for Swords for me was not an issue (blue and steel just seem to go together). The gold for Cups was confusing me a bit, but your explanations make perfect sence to me.

[Rhiannon SW]

I too thank you for the clearing up the gem colors regarding the cups. It does make sense to me what you were striving to portray by using the golden color that the cups reflect.
Again thank you very much & I as a fellow artist do think your work is marvelous.

[calligirl]

I, for one, welcome any and all comments from any artist about his/her creation, reasons, feelings, attitudes, etc. I love hearing about the creative process. Obviously, somebody did something right here because the Gilded Tarot is such a wonderful set and very popular.

[satinangel]

Originally Posted by calligirl

Obviously, somebody did something right here because the Gilded Tarot is such a wonderful set and very popular.

I have to agree with you and it is terrible that Ciro felt he could no longer participate in the forums. I find his posts interesting to read and very helpful!

LOVE this deck! The more I play with it, the easier and clearer they are becoming to me!

[Grizabella]

**The Gilded is another clone and "contribuites nothing new to the Tarot.**

With respect, I totally disagree that this deck adds nothing new to the Tarot. It's an epiphany for me and I've been studying Tarot for five years now. Not long by some standards, I know, but still quite awhile. It's a glorious deck, Mr. Marchetti, and I'm very thankful for your contribution to the world of Tarot, as well as being extremely thankful that I have the privilege of owning the Gilded deck. I'm sure there are many others who feel just as I do.

[N1ghts0ng]

i've had this deck for years and can very easily say that this deck is the easiest for me to connect with. The detailing and colors are so wonderfully eye-catching and vibrant that the cards and the characters in the cards are "alive" to me.
I've often wondered about the switch of colors for the Cups and Swords, but felt it rude to question the artists interpretation. Plus the colors of the gems never felt like a detraction from each cards beauty and message. I'm glad i've finally seen this post, i can put that "wonderment" to rest.
regarding the shape of the pentacle, i personally never had any reason to have a problem with it. my mentor explained to me (and this is what i'm comfortable with, though everyone has their own understanding) that the shape of the star is the pentacle. She said that putting it inside of a circle (thus creating a pentagram) was a visual aid to help define each pentacle. putting the star with a pentagon is much the same function.

Anyways, if you are still monitoring this forum, thank you cirom for such a work of beauty.

Originally Posted by cirom

Hi everybody,

To be honest I had decided to no longer participate or respond in any forums, other than to make future announcements regarding the Tarot of Dreams. The reason being that I feel that being too public here at Aeclectic would make some members uncomfortable about critisism or voicing any negative opinion towards my decks, or in some other cases to actually encourage them to do so as with comments from members like Kissa The Gilded is another clone and "contribuites nothing new to the Tarot." Something that is hurtfull and difficult to defend. Nevertheless since I was asked to join and offer comments to this particular thread I will try and clarify some of the issues.

Suite colors. Why the switch from the traditional Cups Blue, Swords Yellow is probably the most frequently asked question.

Defining the main suite icons was very early in the design process. I gave priority to the look, shape and form of the Swords, Cups etc in the Aces for the obvious reason they they are the visual flagships of their suits. From the onset I always evisioned a golden cup, flamboyantly decorated. Now of course I could have placed this in a watery "blue" environment, but it just felt right to extend the visual warmth of the gold instead with a golden sky. Now, water isn't necessarily blue, its a tonal variation of what its reflecting....blue sky....blue water, golden sunset golden water. Was this logic worth going against tradition for. Maybe not, but it depends on the underlying merit for that tradition. With all due respect as I certainly may be wrong, but I feel the use of blue was more a result of a pragmatic limitation of how many colors could be used by those early tarot artists, rather than symbolism. They could only use a limited number of solid colors, either for technical and possibly budget restrictions. So just as a child would do the obvious choice would be blue for water. Fortunately I didn't have those same limitations, and didn't feel obligated to follow suite (excuse the pun). So a golden cup was the key element, bathed in a golden glow from the sky, and "reflected" in the water. The same logic worked equally well for swords. polished steel "reflecting" the blue of the sky.

As I mentioned in my notes in the companion book. Many of my illustrations contain variations of the balance between science and magic, real world and spiritual. This yin and yan if you will finds its way into the Gilded (and the ToD) in the various mechanical devices depicted there. Obviously they are not natural, they are made, but by whom? Man? The ancients? I don't know. But they are mechanical nevertheless, with wheels cogs pulleys, lenses. But what is their source of energy, what literally makes them tick. Hmmmm....room for thought conjecture, and of course anything that comes to YOUR mind.
These ideas follow through albeit in a simpler way to the design of the wands. Unlike many others decks where the wand is depicted as an all natural staff of wood with leaved buds. In mine, once again is a balance, the natural medium of wood, carved and symbolically decorated with leaves. Yet balanced once again with the man made elements of threaded metal that extend beyond decoration and hint at some function. The torc shaped head is a common item, an amulet from Celtic art, and is in fact used to this day as a bracelet with claims to some energy force with healing properties.

Regarding the Pentacles. Here in my lack of experience I may have been guilty of misinterpreting the importance of the star in the circle, But I felt it wasn't the star that was the key issue, but that it was a five sided one. If not why was it call pentacle, and not star, or coin. So assuming that it was the "five" that was issue. I felt comfortable with applying it from PENTAcle to PENTAgram.

This and other decisions were an attempt to reach a balance between adhereing enough to tradition for the deck to be comfortably recognizable, and yet adding enough variations so as not to be accused of being a RWS clone. A balancing act that is doomed to failure of course because of the diversity of opinion, but hey diversity adds to the richness of the tarot world

I hope these comments have helped.

By the way I will be sending out an update in the next few day to everyone on the ToD mailing list, many new cards to see.