[This post was originally written as a guest post for the Guiltless Reader blog.] One of my earliest memories is of an outing taken with my family — or maybe I’m thinking of two outings rolled into one… it could be that way. I was no more than five years old when this happened and most likely younger than that. The first stop was an old-fashioned emporium which had among its attractions two rows (maybe eight in all; a fabulous collection by today’s standards) of antique penny-arcade movie machines: Mutoscopes. These were bulky iron boxes on long legs with a viewing port mounted on the front much like that of a submarine periscope. Above the main chamber was a small poster...
My Facebook friend Mark Watson recently conducted a series of informal interviews with a number of Tarot Creators, including Ciro Marchetti... and myself. He asked us all the same questions, and ran the final interviews in a tarot group on Facebook over the period of a week. Here's my contribution to the exercise: --------------------------------------- 1) Do you believe that deck designers must know how to read tarot in order to create a working tarot deck? Yes. Full stop. The only exception would be if the artist was working with someone like Barbara Moore, a collaborator who could provide the needed knowledge and background and the overall guidance. Understand that knowing the rules does not necessarily equate with slavishly sticking to...
Shortly after the first email interview that Joan Marie at the Cult of Tarot forum kindly conducted with me, I was gearing up to release my latest Tarot Pack, the Crooked Way Tarot. Apparantly she thought this justified more blather from me, and so we had a second "email interview" exchange that appeared at the Forum shortly after. Here it is.... --------------------------------------------------- A few months ago I had a conversation with Doug Thornsjo, (a.k.a. Freder) of Duck Soup Productions as he was preparing for a re-release of two of his most popular decks, Tinker’s Damn Tarot & Mantegna. But apparently the old saying is true, there is no rest for the wicked as our old friend has so many irons in the...
Perhaps inspired by all the fun and interesting Tarot Video Blogs that I regularly watch on YouTube, I decided to try it formally on my own. A chance for the people who buy my Tarot packs to get to know the artist, that sort of thing. But as you'll see, I made a terrible host, and was summarily "dealt with" by my other, Editorial self. Anyway. In this episode you'll see the making of one card design, and the artifact from my own collection that is featured in the design. You'll also get to know the voice behind the introductory logo that begins all my videos, and get a more extended sample of his work. Hope you like it! -- Thorn. www.tarotbyducksoup.com...
