Indie Decks
-
Deck Review: Figuratively Speaking Tarot
I’ve had the Figuratively Speaking Tarot by B. Miller for a while now, but Bee launching a Kickstarter campaign for her new deck, the Figuratively Speaking Mermaid Tarot, has prompted me to finally get round to doing a deep dive and a review! First things first: as is well documented on this blog, I have zero self-control when my weird little ADHD magpie brain decides it likes a deck and FIXATES <wallet releases muffled screams of pain in background>, so I bought LOADS of the booster packs for the Figuratively Speaking Tarot [FST], and then sorted out my ‘favourite 78’. So please don’t assume that every card I’ve selected below…
-
Deck Review: The Alleyway Tarot
I own Publishing Goblin‘s first Kickstarter Tarot deck, The Alleyman’s Tarot, and, while it’s a bit unwieldy to work with, I still love it for reflection purposes, and for thinking about the ways different artists interpret the traditional card meanings. The guidebook is also a cracking read, as opposed to the normal fairly generic guff. So I didn’t hesitate in backing this new deck, The Alleyway Tarot, that follows the same principles as its predecessor. Each card in the deck is designed by a different artist, and the concept is that this is a ‘found’ deck, cobbled together with individual cards that ‘The Alleyman’ has magpied into his life over…
-
Deck Review: Austin Osman Spare Tarot
One for the collectors and the Tarot-history enthusiasts is the Austin Osman Spare Tarot, which you can currently order via the publisher’s (Strange Attractor) website for £35. Being a skinflint Trying to control my Tarot addiction in a sensible manner, I only forked out for the deck when I backed the project on Kickstarter, so I didn’t get the accompanying book, Lost Envoy: The Tarot Deck of Austin Osman Spare, or the AOS Tarot Sourcebooks (How to Tell Fortunes by The Cards*, by Rapoza (1906), a key source for Spare’s Minor Arcana attributions, and The Tarot, by S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1888) from which he assigned his Major Arcana meanings). This…
-
Currently On Kickstarter: The Out Of Hand Tarot (Pocket Edition)
Just a quick post to say that one of my favourite decks, the Out of Hand Tarot, is available again! You can back a pocket version of the deck on Kickstarter. You can read my (very effusive) review of the full-sized deck here. Sadly, after the artist and creator Jamie Sawyer finished the campaign for the original deck, and sold out all her stock, it was counterfeited. My review of the original deck is the *most* visited page on my website each month, which shows how popular the deck is! However, none of the money goes to Sawyer when people buy counterfeit copies of the deck, and this SUCKS. So,…
-
Deck Review: Grounded Wisdom Tarot
Another Kickstarter-backed deck that recently arrived with me is the gorgeously detailed Grounded Wisdom Tarot. The deck was designed and drawn by Gabby Morris, who takes a “polymathic approach*” to their projects, blending art and design with nature and ecological futures. (*My little ADHD magpie brain perked up at this inspired phrasing! My new goal is owning my own scattergun approach to knowledge by calling it ‘polymathic’! 💪) Morris’ website is full of really cool stuff from her Master’s project and subsequent work – it’s kinda chemistry-meets-cooking-meets-conservation-meets art & design-meets-am dram, and is well worth checking out. The deck not only has lots of crossovers with my own myriad interests…
-
Deck Review: Fat Folks Tarot
I feel like I’ve been waiting aaaaaaages for this deck (its Kickstarter campaign finished on 01/02/23), so I’m very excited to finally have it in my chubby little paws. It is, of course, the second (and final) edition of the Fat Folks Tarot. The creating team note that, while Tarot is “meant to depict the entire realm of human experience”, many people have been left out of the imagery in traditional tarot decks, including fat people. Historically, as one of the co-creators, Cassandra Snow points out, when we see fat people in Tarot they are associated either with “gluttony or motherhood”. And that’s it. That’s all we get. So here…
-
Deck Review: Gourmet Tarot
One of the most recent additions to my collection is this little cutie, the Gourmet Tarot by Scribalist (with illustrations by in-house artist Gumeaw). I got it via backing the Kickstarter campaign, but you can pick it up for £45 via Tevada or £54 via Etsy. The deck aims to “blend… the timeless wisdom of Tarot readings with the universal language of food“, and I was immediately struck by the really thoughtful matching of traditional Tarot symbolism with foods from around the world. There’s definitely a South East Asian vibe to a lot of the foodstuffs (the creators are based in Bangkok), but with classical dishes from Italy to Mexico…
-
Deck Review: Tarot of Echoes
I’ve felt thoroughly spoilt this year with the release of not one, but two, decks by(/with the involvement of) the incredibly talented Ana Tourian (on top of news of a mass-market Bonestone release :-)) I’ve reviewed Ana’s deck with Claire Duval, Le Tarot Arthurien, here, and in this post I’m going to talk through her recent solo deck, the Tarot of Echoes. I love all of Tourian’s decks. I think her art style is perfectly suited to the Tarot – it just clicks together. Bonestone is my all time ride-or-die deck, and now Tarot of Echoes is right up there. It’s a really beautiful, thoughtful, wonderful deck, and I wholeheartedly…
-
Deck Review: Solara Occulto Meliora Tarot
The out-of-print Solara Occulto Tarot has been on my wishlist for aaaaaaages. I occasionally spot a secondhand one on one of the Tarot trading forums, but they’re £££. So it was with great excitement that I saw the artist and creator Amanda Spicer was funding a second edition on Kickstarter! The second edition is largely faithful to the first, with some changes here and there (the borders are gone – hooray, I’m a big fan of borderless images – and the cards are a bit bigger). You can now pick up a copy of the Solara Occulto Meliora deck on the artist and creator’s website for $97 (Canadian; about £56) (Oof! Still less than a…
-
Deck Review: The Colorays Tarot
The Colorays Tarot by Nathalie Besnard is a joyous little deck with some really smart, yet prosaic, ways of conveying traditional RWS symbolism. To this extent, it reminds me a little of the Everyday Enchantment Tarot. It’s also an AI deck, which I realise is a whole can of worms! I only have 2 AI decks (this one and the Älvdansen Tarot) , both of which, imo (and according to the creators), have involved the creators really refining and editing the original AI images to make them into something meaningful and credible. While there are certainly ethical issues with how AI scrapes/collects/plagiarises its data, I think there’s a big difference…
