Parrot Tarot

Kickstarter Countdown

I can’t even believe it, but we’ve arrived. Six years of working on the artwork for the cards and a whole year of working on the Kickstarter campaign, and I am a few days away from the launch. June 8th is just around the corner, and you’ll be able to finally see all of the behind-the-scenes work I have been doing for years.

Here is the Pre-Launch page:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/parrottarot/parrot-tarot-by-krisztina-lazar

Click on “Notify me of launch” to be the first to know when it goes live.

My Little Guy is in his pirate era, and I am so very here for it. One of the things he loves to watch is all of the behind-the-scenes, making-of videos, and documentaries of all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Watching these with him has not only given me so much appreciation for all of the incredible sets, costumes, and real-life special effects that they did to make those movies as rich as they are, but I’ve also been reflecting a lot about going all-in for a creative project because of it.

Tool’s album, Fear Inoculum, came out the exact same day as The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance aired on Netflix in August 2019. The only thing these two things really have in common is that they are some kind of epitome of art for art’s sake. The amount of effort, the almost baroque levels of detail, and the effulgent expression of their genre borders on the beautiful and sublime. I was so struck by these two works because of their utter commitment to themselves that I was perhaps forever changed. Whatever anyone’s personal taste is, it’s hard to argue that the Pirates movies, Fear Inoculum, and The Dark Crystal aren’t aesthetically on some other level.

I have made this idea somewhat of a North Star for all of my own grand artistic endeavors. I think of beauty (and the sublime) not only in the modern sense of the words, which, of course, is all light and thrilling. These ideas have a sense of horror to them. Something truly beautiful is also somewhat unsettling, containing the gaping maw of the void just beyond our comprehension of it. The ecstasy of beauty as it grounds us into our body also fleetingly dissolves our ego, and we dip into the abyss for a brief, glorious moment. And I am a junky for beauty and the sublime.

I attempted to make each and every tarot card as beautiful as I was able to. I have researched, read, taken notes, created a system of esoteric and exoteric correspondences, taken inspiration from Crowley’s color schemes, and made the deck itself hang together in every way a tarot aficionado would appreciate and probably stand and slow clap for. But the images themselves I made beautiful, for art’s sake. The paper, the box, every other detail that I am including in the Kickstarter funding campaign I am making for art’s sake. Why? Because sometimes things need to be made, and they need to be beautiful. No shortcuts, no cutting corners, no settling. When you pick up Parrot Tarot, the actual deck, in your hands, I want you to viscerally feel all that went into making it, like smelling your morning tea or coffee before your first sip. I don’t know the intricacies of how my matcha was harvested and prepared, but with that first inhale and sip, I know that it was made with care and love. With your help, Parrot Tarot is going to become a reality, a physical deck you hold in your hands. You will be able to lift the box lid, take out the booklet, and pull the ribbon to release the cards from their nest. Shuffling the cards, you will know, you will feel the beauty, the magic, and the art that went into making every aspect of the cards.

Check out the Pre-Launch page below.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/parrottarot/parrot-tarot-by-krisztina-lazar

Click on “Notify me of launch” to be the first to know when it goes live.

Here we go, y’all. I am so excited to be on this journey with all of you.

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Recommendations

I have been going absolutely gaga over this NOVA series called HUMAN. It aired last fall, and I heard an interview with paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi on one of my favorite podcasts, The Ancients. I LOVE everything paleoanthropology, and this NOVA series is the most incredibly beautiful, well-told story of our origins that I have ever encountered. I can’t recommend it enough.

If you are a KQED supporter, you can watch it HERE.

If not, you can find it on your local PBS NOVA streaming site. And if you don’t support PBS in these crazy times, you should just to watch this program.

And finally, I will leave you with this, one of Hawk’s favorite making-of videos.