Since my last newsletter two weeks ago, I came down with a cold, fell very behind in absolutely everything, and after cycling through a rollercoaster of emotions, I have been slowly accepting the fact that I will never be “caught up,” but rather I need to readjust my thinking that this is just where I am now. Sigh.
My ambitious plan to get the Kickstarter out by the end of June for Parrot Tarot was not meant to be. I have actually been diligently toiling away night after night after Hawk goes to sleep on putting the thing together. Kickstarters are no joke. To create all of the digital assets, write all of the text, not to mention edit the images and videos, turns out to be a ton of work. So I am plodding along, progress is steady, but slow. It took me six and a half years to create the artwork. If it takes a few extra weeks to get the Kickstarter completed, so be it. It’s worth taking the time to do it. But damn. I reeeeeeeeally wanted to have it done by now. But life has other plans.
I have been creating really beautiful collections of my paintings to show my work on the Kickstarter. Above is all of my Major Arcana cards.
Here’s a sample of the Suite of Sticks. Actually seeing what they look like with their border and text is just so thrilling. It makes me feel like I’m just one step closer to holding these cards in my hand.
I finished painting the back of the card art.
The Tarot is a deck of Magic and Divination. Its patron card, then, is the Magus. My own Mr. Sam is the parrot on the Magus card, and so I decided that the eye watching over the deck should be his. There are a lot more esoteric reasons to make the eye an African Grey eye as it relates to the internal logic within my deck, which I will reveal in a later post.
Ok. OMG Stop. So, as I am writing this, I look up and I saw a large bird walking next to the neighbor’s house. I kept staring at it and suddenly stammered, “OMG Michael! There’s a p-p-p-p-peacock outside!” I ran to the window and yep, there was a male peacock outside just bopping along. They lose their tail feathers this time of year here which is why he has nothing going on in the back. The sun was going down so this is best photo I could take of him as everything happened so fast.
Michael ran next door to see if the neighbor knew anything about it and I did a hurried post to the Vallejo community FB to see if anyone “lost their peacock.” The big guy flew onto our roof and then we lost track of him.
Ok, anyway, how do I follow up with anything after a peacock incident? I don’t know. I just can’t. I always tell Michael that I am a hair’s length away from buying a house peacock at any given moment. I literally almost purchased one when I was living in Cleveland aeons ago. It took severe restraint then as it does today. So having one just show up for a visit seems auspicious, since I definitely am a practitioner of bird augury. Peacocks belong to the planet Jupiter as well, the Great Benefic, so I will certainly take it as a good omen.
I am going to finish clittety-clacking on my keyboard about all of this and start clittety-claking on the Kickstart project for the rest of the evening. Much love to all of you!