It's all in the Cards

by Penelope Graham

The ambience of the small studio space is tranquil. The air is permeated with soothing incense and the scent of tea wafts from a nearby kitchen. It is a secret blend, according to the artist who occupies the space. It is a jarring contrast to the paintings hanging on the wall. A fiery goddess, a celestial queen and a skeleton all stare down from their frames; their gazes seem to bore into the very soul of the observer.

The raven-haired and scarlet-lipped Dorota Buczel fits in with the mystical atmosphere she has created. She has been a visual artist since she was a little girl, and has had a deep fascination with tarot cards for years. Combining her two loves to create a deck of her own design was, well, in the cards.

“I have studied the tarot, but I always learn new things about it when I paint,” she says. “Some of my inspiration comes from other decks, but much of it is from people, places, life.”
Tarot decks have been hand painted since ancient Egyptian times, and it is a practice that continues to flourish today. Each card in a painted deck is a piece that can take months for an artist to finish. With 78 cards altogether, a complete deck is a project that can be years in the making, and for artists who squeeze their art in around their jobs, it can even take decades.

To date, Buczel has created only five paintings for her deck, as she works full time as a makeup artist. They are created with acrylic paint on large canvases, and when a painting is finished she has it professionally photographed so she can transfer the image to her computer. When all of her cards are finished, she will begin shopping for a publisher to release her deck to the public.

A deck can be a very spiritual project because many artists have strong personal beliefs tied into their art. Some look to it as a way to probe the future, a guide for questions or intuitive feelings. Others, such as Buczel, use a deck as a medium for personal reflection and self development. “If you have a question or a certain feeling, you can pull a few cards to give you some insight.”

Artist Tamare White-Wolf has been practicing the tarot since she was 14 years old and looks to it to provide her with religion. “It spoke my inner-being’s language,” says the now 45-year-old artist. “Nothing else seemed to fit . . . I was called to it.”

According to White-Wolf, tarot decks have always been a controversial form of spirituality and art. While their origins are largely unknown, some experts say the cards developed from a deviation of chess, and were used as a strategic tool for battle. Over the years, artists painted them to hold hidden truths and theories about society, religion, politics and culture. Many of these views were considered blasphemous, earning the cards the notoriety as a tool of witchcraft around the 1300s.

White-Wolf says these hidden messages are the keys to how the decks came to be known for personal exploration. “It was used in parlor games, with small groups of women trying to find the hidden meaning of the cards,” she says. These individual interpretations led to the belief that the cards held a personal meaning for whoever is reading them, making it possible to use them for personal reflection and exploration.

Personal interpretation of the tarot’s symbols is fundamental in reading a deck and when painting one. The theme of the deck, the symbols, and the characters featured are determined by the beliefs and creativity of the artist. This allows for a diverse range of decks and many people shop around to find one that works well with their personality.

The characters of the Major Arcana, a set of 22 “trumps” that depict the “what” of a situation or question, can be painted differently by each artist. For example, the “Death” card does not always mean the obvious, but can also mean a new beginning or fresh start. Some artists may choose to represent this meaning, but some may go with a traditional route of painting Death as a skeleton or grim reaper. The symbols of the 56 Minor Arcana cards, which represent the “how,” are also open to interpretation. For example, a traditional Swords card may be painted with a modern twist, with guns or perhaps without a weapon at all.

The new takes on the classics are fresh and creative, but they aren’t always a good thing, says White-Wolf. “Some [artists] go on to corrupt it because they don’t understand it,” she says. “Some new artists are forgetting symbols – that’s what’s sad.” She refers to two particularly offending decks, one a Halloween deck, the other baseball themed, saying, “They mock the tarot in their ignorance and light-heartedness.”

She uses her deep knowledge of the tarot when designing her own cards. “I allow myself to feel,” she says, referring to her own interpretations. “Normally the High Priestess is depicted on a throne, holding a torch. I have her differently, standing up, with wings on her back. Only a few people do that.”