Abandoned Tarot (Part One)

Back when the Bright Idea Deck was under development, I was toying with the idea of a photo-collage Tarot, set in a corporate environment. This project was never finished -- but while repairing a disk drive in an old computer of mine this weekend, I came across the images for several Majors, and thought these might be fun to share.

More images after the break!

FOOL

MAGICIAN

PRIESTESS

EMPRESS

EMPEROR

Comments

[Karen Mahony]

Interesting to see, but in a way I'm quite glad that you abandoned this. I spent years doing "Blue Chip" corporate consultancy (mainly brand and web areas) and personally I would find a deck like this quite unattractive. I'm sure you have more impressive things up your sleeve!

But nice to see all the same, thanks for posting it. It's certainly made me thoughtful about why it is that I react badly to seeing these sort of "image bank" corporate types in a tarot - it may tell me quite a lot about why I left that world!

[Balakirev]

I'm with Karen on this, because the corporate environment is too limiting. It's not just pretty costumes (Waite) or "fairies" (Fey) or vague but often attractive and appropriate artwork (So Many!), but an entire work-related mini-culture. It rules out plenty of the cards which simply don't occur. Admittedly I view the corporate world with some suspicion, more or less as a 4 of Pentacles, but I think it would put your feet in concrete, and sink you by its limitations. Unless you got specific and focused on "good" corporations, and then you'd have to explain the cards--and that takes away from the images.

Eh, I'm running on. In any case, I hope I made at least a bit of sense.

[James D. Wickson]

These images remind me of the surrealist painter Rene Magritte. I'm curious as to whether or not he was an influence.
One thing that impressed me about the BID was how it discarded the vestigial ludic imagery of Tarot. BID goes further than the RWS in the "rectification" of Tarot by completly abandoning the Italian playing card suits and traditional court card names. One thing that remains from the more tradiitonal Tarots is the Roman numeral system. Have you given any thoughts to using Arabic numerals for this deck instead of the Roman ones?

[Mark McElroy]

Hi, James. Thanks for the question.

The deck images seen here are the digital equivalent of sketches or doodles. The work was never completed, and the project was abandoned years ago, so I've never considered how it would be numbered, titled, or developed further.

Another quick note -- I'm in a hurry today! -- as someone who, once again, lives eight (or more) hours a day in the corporate environment, I do get some satisfaction out of seeing my workaday world reflected in card illustrations.

I run across archetypal situations and embodiments of various Arcana every day, so I would disagree that the corporate universe, by its nature, is too limited or somehow unsuited to be the setting for a Tarot deck. The Tarot reflects life; if your life takes place in a corporate setting, a Tarot set in a corporate environment could be a powerful tool.

That said: I wouldn't expect such a deck to speak to those who live outside that idiom, any more than I would expect a show like _The Office_ to become an isolated rural farmer's favorite television show. Different strokes, you know.