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Deck Review: Liberation Tarot
“The Tarot cannot show me anything I do not know, but it can help me uncover and dance with my knowing… With a practice like Tarot, we are liberated from isolation into a conversation we can have with ourselves and that which is beyond ourselves, even when we appear to be alone” adrienne maree brown Any deck that features contributions from the amazing adrienne maree brown (I use her writing with my Criminology students *all* the time) instantly gets my attention, so I was very excited to see the Liberation Tarot Deck come up on Kickstarter and backed it straightaway. The deck is now for sale on most online stores, or through the publishers,…
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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…
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Deck Review: The Universal Folk Tarot
I’ve been waiting for Anita Iverarity‘s Universal Folk Tarot to come out for aaaaaages, and I’m so happy it’s finally here. I’ve always been a big fan of Inverarity’s art style, as evidenced in their gorgeous Universal Folk Oracle, but Oracle decks aren’t really my thing (with a few notable exceptions), so I was so excited to see this beautiful Tarot deck in the works. The art reminds me, stylistically, of the art in one of my favourite books as a kid, In Search Of Unicorns, illustrated by Wendy Hall (I can find out literally nothing about Hall, btw. It’s like she illustrated this one awesome, quirky, darkly odd little…
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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…
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Deck Review: The Ink Witch Tarot
The Ink Witch Tarot by Eric Maille was on my wishlist for a while, but never made the “ok, I’ll buy it” cut. I knew it was a deck that got a lot of love in the Tarot community, and I thought the art was very accomplished, but I’m not really in to (largely) monochrome decks, and so always felt a bit luke-warm about it. Then I saw the Two of Wands card on someone’s Insta and was like “huh, that’s such a smart interpretation”. I looked at a whole deck flip through on YouTube and thought a lot of the artwork was super interesting in its take on the…
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Deck Review: Broken Mirror Tarot (5th Ed.)
Ah, the Broken Mirror Tarot… This deck, created by Sengia, was the first deck I ordered and didn’t imediately love (and the first Kickstarter Deck I had Backers’ Remorse over once it arrived!), and, after having it in my collection for two years, and working with it a fair bit, I’m still largely ambivalent about it. To start with, there is nothing particularly adventurous about any of the symbolism in this deck – it’s a pretty faithful RWS clone. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, I have plenty of RWS clones that I adore, including literal frame by frame re-craftings (like Jamie Sawyer’s stunning 1909 RWS Sawyer’s Redux Edition).…
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Deck Review: The Journey Tarot Deck
I’ve been a big fan of The Journey Tarot Deck by Teagan Michael Turner ever since its inception (you can see me raving about it on Kickstarter here and here), and now it finally exists in the physical world (and in my collection :-)) it does not disappoint. I will say off the bat that this is a pretty pricey deck, probably one of the more expensive ‘new’ decks in my collection (we won’t mention the painful amount of money I’ve spent acquiring some rare secondhand OOP gems, looking at you Bonestone!) However, you can tell the money has gone on the excellent production values (the box really is a…
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Deck Review: Le Tarot Arthurien
I’ve been SO excited about the incredibly talented Ana Tourian having not one, but two, stunning looking decks coming out (as well as the touted second edition of the infamous Bonestone Earthflesh Tarot!) I’m happy to say I now have both of them in my collection, and they do not disappoint. Here I’m reviewing the gorgeous Tarot Arthurien* that Tourian illustrated in collaboration with creator Claire Duval – and Tourian’s new solo deck, The Tarot of Echoes, will be coming up for review soon! As you might have guessed, this deck is based on the legend(s) of King Arthur (particularly the works of the French poet Chrétien de Troyes), and…
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Deck Review: The Lacuna Tarot
This is a weird little deck (N.B. I got mine through Kickstarter, but you can now buy it from the creator’s Game Crafter page). I definitely would NOT recommend it for novice or inexperienced readers, or folks who prefer a straight-talking, to-the-point, traditional-type deck. Hell, I feel I’m a reasonably experienced Tarot reader by now, and I’m not sure I’d recommend it for me! None of this is to say I dislike this deck: I like it. But it’s a very personal deck; it’s basically like wandering into someone else’s brain while they’re in the process of giving a reading. Everything is veiled and imprecise, like the thoughts that flash…
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Deck Review: Genius Garden Tarot
Eeeeeek, I can’t believe how quickly this deck went from me falling in love with it on Kickstarter to being in my hot little hands. Seriously, the creator and artist of the Genius Garden Tarot, Jessi Huntenburg, runs a tight ship. This is the swiftest and most professional Kickstarter campaign I think I’ve ever backed! Huntenburg describes the ‘genius’ of the Genius Garden Tarot as “the unique spirit of your higher self, the directional arrow that points you toward your most creative potential”, adding “genius isn’t a title that’s reserved for the quickest or most accomplished among us. Instead, it’s a gift that’s given to each of us at the…
