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.