an artist's tarot
“What we call inspiration is often only the reward of habit.”
— Degas
All images shown here are from previous edits, not the finished deck.
why would an artist make a tarot deck at all?
Before theory, there was the hand. My first encounter with art was as a hobby and self-taught: light, proportion, replication, form, patience. I learned that drawing is looking closely — not invention, but attention.
Many years later, when I entered formal study, that world had already shifted. The language of art had become conceptual, ironic, often distrustful of craft. Ideas mattered more than evidence. Skill was tolerated, sometimes admired, but rarely required.
That education shaped me more than I realised. I learned to think critically, to build meaning from context rather than pigment. In one sense it was liberating; in another it created a distance from the reason I had begun. Art had become argument. I encountered artists fluent in justification yet uneasy before the demands of traditional skill. I have never quite forgotten that tension.
The Tribute Tarot began as a quiet act of reconciliation — a way to return to what education had divided. It was not nostalgia for technique but a deliberate return to accountability: to the visible, the measurable, the made. The tarot offered a structure old enough to withstand reinterpretation, and demanding enough to strip away conceit. Each card required both the judgement of a designer and the humility of a craftsman.
To work in this space — between idea and material — is to accept conflict as method. Thought without craft becomes hollow; craft without thought becomes habit. The artist’s task is to keep both alive, each correcting the excesses of the other. In that sense the deck became a place where that argument could continue honestly: not in words about art, but in the making of it.
an artist's code
Every artist works within a code, spoken or not. It governs the relationship between skill, intention, and truth. Mine has always been simple: the work must justify itself. It cannot depend on explanation or charm.
Technique alone is never enough, but its absence invites deception. Craft disciplines the ego. It forces the artist to meet resistance — to wrestle with what refuses to obey the mind. That resistance is as moral as it is material. It teaches humility: the recognition that the world exists independent of the artist’s intention. Every failed line, every awkward proportion, is a reminder that control is partial, and that truth resists simplification.
Integrity appears in accuracy, in proportion, in the refusal to sentimentalise what should remain clear. The tarot’s figures are symbolic, yet each must look credible — able to stand, breathe, and carry weight. The balance between idea and realism became the measure of the work. To distort for drama or prettiness would have betrayed the archetype itself.
Art, then, is a discipline of attention. Not merely to see, but to look properly; to make precisely; to allow what is made to speak for itself. The Tribute Tarot demanded this continually. That discipline continues beyond the deck — where the real labour of art is not invention, but endurance.
artist as custodian
No image, symbol, or archetype belongs to a single artist. Each arrives already shaped by centuries of use — carried through woodcuts, manuscripts, engravings, and the quiet labour of forgotten hands.
To work within that lineage is not to claim ownership but to accept stewardship. The artist becomes a temporary custodian of forms that existed long before their arrival and will continue long after their departure.
The Tribute Tarot therefore does not attempt to replace tradition, nor to escape it. It enters the conversation where others have left it — adjusting, refining, and passing the structure forward.
the artist's oath
Every sustained work carries an implicit promise: to remain faithful to the discipline that made it possible.
For this deck that promise was simple. Each image would be built with the same attention, the same restraint, and the same refusal to settle for the convenient solution. No card would be hurried, softened, or simplified for effect. If a figure failed to convince, it would be redrawn. If a composition weakened the structure, it would be rebuilt.
The obligation was not to perfection but to honesty of form — to make each card stand on its own clarity. What mattered was that the work remain accountable to itself.
That commitment shaped the entire process. It continues beyond the deck.
conclusion
The Tribute Tarot did not emerge from a desire to illustrate symbols, but from the need to test whether image-making could still carry conviction. The deck became a place where idea and material met under pressure — where the demands of structure, proportion, and meaning had to be reconciled card by card.
In that sense the work belongs neither wholly to tradition nor wholly to invention. It stands between them, drawing strength from inherited forms while submitting them to present scrutiny. Each image is both continuation and examination — a small argument conducted through line, gesture, and weight.
The deck therefore remains less a conclusion than a return — to the work itself, and to the long conversation from which it arose.
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.” — Leonardo da Vinci
↩︎ Return to Creating This Deck — where practice meets philosophy
↪︎ Continue to Artistic Influences — where intention meets its lineage