I am making a tarot deck!
Ok! Let's do this thing! This "thing" being a decan walk (and MAKING A TAROT DECK WTF)
Except I don't really know what I'm doing. I am perhaps not qualified to be your guide.
So, I'm just going to figure it out as I go. And you are most certainly welcome to accompany me here.
For anyone who doesn’t know what a decan walk is or even what a decan is, this is a great article from Andrew B. Watt on the topic.
In short, the decans (also called faces) are the zodiac signs split into 3 sections of 10 degrees each, making 36 altogether. These 36 decans correspond to the 36 minor arcana tarot cards from 2-10 in each suit. Aries 1 (0-9 degrees) = the 2 of Wands, Aries 2 (10-19 degrees) = the 3 of Wands, and so on.
I am not going to be making a compendium of decan meanings, images, and sources. I am going to do some of that sometimes, but this won't be a research and report kind of thing. Or it will be occasionally, but that's not the point of it. The point of it is to do that and then live life, and try to interpret how it FEELS to have the Sun in a certain part of the zodiac. And make a tarot card about it.
(If you ARE interested in a more thorough and well-presented research & report type of decan walk experience, may I recommend Spencer Michaud's series of lectures where he draws from some of the same sources that I will be using and puts it all together in a beautiful and thoughtful way. I can't say enough good things about Spencer's work, go check out his YouTube too!)
Sources I will be using include, but are not limited to, 36 Faces by Austin Coppock and 36 Secrets by T. Susan Chang. I'll also be using several tarot decks, of course the Rider Waite Smith and the Thoth deck but also Robert Place's Alchemical Renewed and probably some others.
I've wanted to do a decan walk for some time but this year the timing finally feels right to start on the Spring Equinox/Aries 1! Maybe that has something to do with being in a solar profection year... I can't promise that I will be as consistent as the Sun, however! I reserve the right to have cloudy days.
Time to address the elephant in the room: the deck. It has always been my plan to make a full deck! My sketchbooks from high school were filled with old-school tattoo style Star and Two of Cups cards in pencil crayon. Now that I've made the bulk of the Major Arcana in miniature silver versions, I must simply carry on with this momentum!
I am going to be using linoleum cutting/print making to create the deck images in pip-style (think playing cards, not full scenes). Lino printing makes sense to me as it's something I have experience with and a really similar process to the way that I carve the wax model for the tarot pendants, so there will be a continuity and a hands-on factor that is important to me. I may use digital modes at some point for colouration, font work, and editing down the line.
I am going to try to make the card during the decan period. Try being the operative word here. I'm not sure I can keep up that pace especially with travel and periods of other work commitments. We will see! The beauty of a project that you know will take multiple years is that you can't possibly know where it will take you and what will happen in the in between.
If you got this far, thank you for reading! If you chose to patronise my project, thank you for your support!
xox
Janet
