Chiriku
Sword King, I take your point about the artist being multi-talented and working across media and art form. I myself have varying talents that few people view as being congruent with one another.
Now that I think about it, it's the marketing of this deck that gives it an air of tarot-dilettantism that raises the brows a bit. In my experience, the decks that are most engulfing and meaningful are those created by people with a deep immersion in and love of tarot. Some of those have excellent art (decks by Julie Cuccia-Watts, Nigel Jackson, Robert Place, Paul Huson) and others have less-appealing art by my tastes, but they are all decks of intellectual or emotional substance behind the art on the card. By contrast, I often learn (after the fact of purchase and use) that decks that I felt unimpressed by from a substantive sense were created by people who had only a passing interest in tarot for tarot's sake and whose chief interest in tarot was as a vehicle for art or theme.
This collective, the Wild Unknown, seems to be aiming for a unified branding across very different products and media. They describe themselves as creators of music (the band); visual art (the tarot, calendars, art prints); jewelry and curios (glass or crystal prisms, etc); books (presumably some are authors); as well as purveyors of a certain lifestyle/aesthetic (bohemian urban transplanted to woodsy but-not-too-rural environments) via a cabin owned by one of the people, possibly the artist herself. They hold parties and musical events at the cabin.
In other words, what they seem to be after is cross-marketing and selling a brand as opposed to a specific product or category of product. They want to sell "The Wild Unknown," the concept of it, and they do that in variety of cross-category ways, listed above.
This marketing strategy, while probably effective, is what gives me the impression that the deck was not produced entirely for its own sake. (This may not be a problem in using the deck, given that people can connect with almost anything for reading purposes; people have successfully resonated with decks with extremely tenuous pedigrees, for instance, the Miss Cleo deck used to market the telephone psychic reader who appeared on late night TV infomercials).
According to the websites and blog affiliated with the group (all of which are deliberately coy about The Wild Unknown, its members, origin and mission), there was a promotional party at which the deck was introduced, but the postings seem almost to indicate that it's not so much that a deck had a launch party than that a brand had an event at which its new product (the deck) and the 'psychic readings' done with it was a selling point.
Here's more support for the idea that the brand is what's being advanced, with less emphasis on the deck as tarot:
http://www.bonadrag.com/
This is one of the several small shops or online businesses carrying the deck. If you click on the front page promotion for the deck, you will see several photographs of the deck in use by young, fashion-conscious women. The photos almost seem to be promoting the jewelry, clothes, and general aesthetic of the models as much as they are the deck that is the ostensible subject of the listing.
In all, the promotional campaign across different platforms (their site, their blog, their partner shops' sites) conveys the tacit message: "Buy this tarot deck and you will be part of The Wild Unknown lifestyle--the music, the clothing and jewelry choices, the cabin in the woods where artisan beers are consumed during impromptu summer evening performances by fashionably folksy-alternative musical ensembles."
Granted, I'm not part of the demographic targeted by this brand, and perhaps that's why I am more attuned to the marketing issues at play here.
Now that I think about it, it's the marketing of this deck that gives it an air of tarot-dilettantism that raises the brows a bit. In my experience, the decks that are most engulfing and meaningful are those created by people with a deep immersion in and love of tarot. Some of those have excellent art (decks by Julie Cuccia-Watts, Nigel Jackson, Robert Place, Paul Huson) and others have less-appealing art by my tastes, but they are all decks of intellectual or emotional substance behind the art on the card. By contrast, I often learn (after the fact of purchase and use) that decks that I felt unimpressed by from a substantive sense were created by people who had only a passing interest in tarot for tarot's sake and whose chief interest in tarot was as a vehicle for art or theme.
This collective, the Wild Unknown, seems to be aiming for a unified branding across very different products and media. They describe themselves as creators of music (the band); visual art (the tarot, calendars, art prints); jewelry and curios (glass or crystal prisms, etc); books (presumably some are authors); as well as purveyors of a certain lifestyle/aesthetic (bohemian urban transplanted to woodsy but-not-too-rural environments) via a cabin owned by one of the people, possibly the artist herself. They hold parties and musical events at the cabin.
In other words, what they seem to be after is cross-marketing and selling a brand as opposed to a specific product or category of product. They want to sell "The Wild Unknown," the concept of it, and they do that in variety of cross-category ways, listed above.
This marketing strategy, while probably effective, is what gives me the impression that the deck was not produced entirely for its own sake. (This may not be a problem in using the deck, given that people can connect with almost anything for reading purposes; people have successfully resonated with decks with extremely tenuous pedigrees, for instance, the Miss Cleo deck used to market the telephone psychic reader who appeared on late night TV infomercials).
According to the websites and blog affiliated with the group (all of which are deliberately coy about The Wild Unknown, its members, origin and mission), there was a promotional party at which the deck was introduced, but the postings seem almost to indicate that it's not so much that a deck had a launch party than that a brand had an event at which its new product (the deck) and the 'psychic readings' done with it was a selling point.
Here's more support for the idea that the brand is what's being advanced, with less emphasis on the deck as tarot:
http://www.bonadrag.com/
This is one of the several small shops or online businesses carrying the deck. If you click on the front page promotion for the deck, you will see several photographs of the deck in use by young, fashion-conscious women. The photos almost seem to be promoting the jewelry, clothes, and general aesthetic of the models as much as they are the deck that is the ostensible subject of the listing.
In all, the promotional campaign across different platforms (their site, their blog, their partner shops' sites) conveys the tacit message: "Buy this tarot deck and you will be part of The Wild Unknown lifestyle--the music, the clothing and jewelry choices, the cabin in the woods where artisan beers are consumed during impromptu summer evening performances by fashionably folksy-alternative musical ensembles."
Granted, I'm not part of the demographic targeted by this brand, and perhaps that's why I am more attuned to the marketing issues at play here.