I love that tarot blends structure with intuition.

It has historical roots, symbolic richness, and it continues to evolve across belief systems. While its imagery was once shaped by the Christian worldview of medieval Europe, the archetypes themselves are older and more universal. They still speak to us today—across cultures, across time.

What excites me most is imagining these cards out in the world, being used by people to create moments of connection and introspection. Tarot readings are often intimate—just one person holding space for another, asking questions that matter: Should I move? Should I take this job? What path is right for me?

These aren’t trivial questions. They’re human ones. And tarot, when used well, doesn’t give answers—it offers insight. It reflects to us what we might already sense deep down.

People worry about receiving “bad news” from the cards, but there’s really no such thing. Every card offers information. Tarot doesn’t decide your future; it helps you see it.

It’s not about control, it’s about awareness. Like many things in my life, the tarot project found me. One day, Emily—my closest friend, who lives in Skagway—asked if I’d create a tarot deck for her. I casually said yes, not realizing it would turn into a three-year process of hand-cutting each card with an X-Acto knife, and another year and a half to get them printed. But it became one of the most rewarding creative experiences I’ve ever had.

At the time, I was already doing paper cuts—an ancient art form of cutting detailed designs into paper—and it just made sense to apply that technique to the cards. I work primarily with black paper layered over white, creating highly detailed, negative-space images. The style paired well with the symbolism and storytelling inherent in tarot.

Creating the deck for Emily made the project even more special. The figures in the cards are based on people and animals dear to her. We used a highly collaborative process: I’d sketch ideas, send them to her for feedback, and we’d go back and forth refining them. Her dogs appear on the deck. We wove Alaskan imagery throughout—the animals, the landscapes, the spirit of the land. Her artistic eye shaped the final visuals as much as mine.

In the process, I also came to love researching each card—its original meaning, the symbols, the archetypes—and then reimagining it through an Alaskan lens.

Process for Card-to-Character Pairing:

1. Establish the character profile

2. Analyze the card’s symbolism

3. Map personal traits to the symbolic elements within the cards

My process began with understanding the card’s essence—its core meaning, energy, and place in the journey. From there, I sought those same qualities in people important to Emily as this is her deck.

It was a back-and-forth process of researching each card’s historical meaning, sketching ideas, collaborating with Emily, and finding parallels in each card to our context.

For example, the card the Chariot:

UPRIGHT: Control, willpower, success, action, determination

REVERSED: Self-discipline, opposition, lack of direction

The Chariot Tarot card shows a brave warrior standing inside a chariot, shown here as a fishing vessel. The crown signals victory, success, and spiritual evolution. Although he appears to be driving the chariot, the charioteer holds no reins – just a wand like The Magician’s – symbolizing that he controls through the strength of his will and mind.

Above his head is a canopy of stars, suggesting his connection to the celestial world and the Divine will. The chariot has traditionally drawn by two lions, but in my version are two mermaids representing duality, positive and negative, and, at times, opposing forces. This card depicts a friend of Emily Deach who commissioned the deck. The

Chariot is drawn by two mermaids as this friend is a fisherman with great depth of experience. His vessel is shown behind him.

Absolutely—it was incredibly important. Living in Sitka, Alaska, with our rugged coastline, ancient rainforest, and unpredictable weather reminds me daily of life’s constant change. That spirit is infused into the deck—not just visually, but energetically and spiritually.

The cards are woven with imagery from my surroundings: evergreen trees, misty mountains, flowing tides, and the animals and plants that mark the seasons in Southeast Alaska.

These aren’t just decorative elements, they symbolize transformation and cycles, which are central to tarot. For me, the landscape here isn’t something I watch from a distance—I live within it. It’s immediate, intimate, and deeply intertwined with our daily lives. I wanted the deck to reflect that relationship.

While I included some animals from northern and mainland Alaska, my focus stayed on the natural markers around me—the subtle shifts locals recognize as signs of seasonal transition. Sitka’s rainforest fosters a deep connection to the land; one I believe many of us feel whether spoken or not.

I also incorporated motifs from Skagway as a personal nod to Emily, since that’s where she’s resides. It was important to honor not only the broader regional spirit of Alaska but also create something personal that reflects her history and feels like home. The back of the card is a personal history of Emily’s ancestry.

Back of Card:

Bulgrin-Murphy-Wescott Families

Germany- Cornflower

England-Tudor Rose

Ireland-Shamrock

Canada-Maple Leaf

Wisconsin-Wood Violet

Illinois-Violets

Sitka-Forget-me-nots.

Skagway-wild irises

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Before I began working on the deck, tarot was a personal practice—an intimate tool for reflection and insight. But as I started creating the deck, my relationship with tarot began to shift. The process of designing the cards became a space not only for exploring symbolism, but also for understanding my own creative process in a much deeper way.

Sticking with one project for three years felt unnatural at first, it’s not how I typically work. But that long-term commitment ended up being one of the most transformative parts of the journey. It’s what pushed me to grow, both personally and creatively.

I think that’s just part of what happens when you truly dive into something. The more I learned about tarot, the more energized I felt. I love learning and researching—it lights me up. And the deeper I went into the layers of meaning behind the cards, the more fascinated I became. Eventually, I developed a strong desire not just to make the deck, but to share tarot as I see it: a living tool for reflection in the modern world.

Archetypes, after all, are timeless for a reason. They help us make sense of human behavior, offering categories that reflect something essential about ourselves and others. Tarot works as a mirror to these archetypes, giving us a framework to understand our experiences, emotions, and relationships through symbolic language.

My connection to tarot has only deepened through this process. I see it less as a fixed tradition and more as something evolving, something that meets us where we are.

To appreciate how tarot became what it is today, it helps to look back. Around the mid-15th century, shortly after the first written records of playing cards appeared in Europe, an artist named Bonifacio Bembo created a special deck for the Visconti family of Milan.

This early version of tarot, designed for the game tarocchi, consisted of four suits of 14 cards each, along with 22 symbolic cards later known as the triumphs—what we now call the Major Arcana.

Many of these triumphs depict figures from medieval society—The Pope, The Emperor—or represent moral ideas like The Wheel of Fortune. Some embody virtues such as Temperance or Fortitude, while others draw from religious or mythological sources. One of the most intriguing cards is The Hanged Man: a serene figure suspended upside down by one leg, forming a shape reminiscent of a cross—or the number four. His calm expression is striking. He doesn’t appear to be a criminal, despite common associations with punishment.

In medieval Italy, hanging someone upside down was a known penalty for traders, yet this image feels more symbolic than punitive. His peaceful demeanor invites us to interpret the card on a deeper level. Christian tradition tells of Saint Peter, who requested to be crucified upside down out of humility. Norse mythology speaks of Odin, who hung from the World Tree for nine days in search of wisdom. Across many cultures, physical inversion or discomfort is used by shamans to provoke spiritual insight and transformation.

Maybe Bembo intended to portray something closer to an alchemist, someone who

sacrifices comfort in pursuit of knowledge. The fact that there are 22 triumph cards

might not be accidental either. If we consider Carl Jung’s theory of archetypes as

universal patterns within the human psyche, Bembo intuitively tapped into deeper-

symbolic truths waiting to be discovered.

For centuries, though, tarot was just a game. It was not until the 18th century that the

occultist Antoine Court de Gébelin proposed that tarot had ancient Egyptian

origins—fragments, he claimed, from the legendary Book of Thoth. That idea changed

everything. From that point on, tarot’s symbolism evolved again, shifting from recreation

to revelation.

Today, many people turn to tarot not for fortune-telling, but for insight. It’s become a tool

for understanding the subtle forces shaping our lives. While the historical roots of tarot

remain a point of fascination, what matters to many modern readers is the meaning

tarot has accumulated through centuries of use.

Despite countless reinterpretations, modern tarot still mirrors its Renaissance origins.

The structure remains the same: 78 cards, divided into the four suits—Wands, Cups,

Swords, and Coins—collectively known as the Minor Arcana, and the 22 cards of the

Major Arcana. The imagery may vary across decks, but the archetypes endure. An

Emperor card might appear in dozens of styles, but it always returns to the same core

ideas—authority, power, stability.

In a skeptical age, divination is often dismissed as irrational, because modern thought

favors logic and causality. Events without clear cause and effect are seen as

random—meaningless. But older worldviews embraced the idea of

correspondence—that patterns in one realm reflect those in another. The Zodiac mirrors

human life cycles. The shape of tea leaves might reflect future events. Everything is

interconnected.

So why not tarot? If symbols can help us understand ourselves, then tarot is a valid and

valuable tool. Its strength lies not in prediction, but in reflection. The cards don’t dictate

fate—they illuminate possibility. They invite us to notice what we might otherwise miss.

Every reading reminds us: no card, no moment, is inherently good or bad. Meaning is

created through context. And in that space—between the question and the card—tarot

offers something rare: a pause for reflection, a chance to see with greater clarity.

My introduction to tarot art grew out of curiosity, study, and reflection. I’ve been familiar with tarot since high school, during what I’d call my mystical, experimental phase—that’s when I got my first deck.

But I didn’t fully reconnect with it until this project came to life. When Emily asked if I wanted to make a deck together, something clicked. It reignited my love of symbolism and gave me a new creative challenge: to build something personal, intentional, and meaningful.

From there, I immersed myself in different tarot decks—from the classic Rider-Waite-Smith to more contemporary, experimental ones. I paid close attention to how each artist used visual language to express archetypes and symbolism. Tarot, I realized, is all about translating a universal system into something deeply personal.

My background as an artist coupled with my education in the arts helped me approach this project with layered understanding, one where each image could honor the original

archetype while still allowing space for personal resonance. It became more than a

study; it became a creative and intuitive conversation between tradition and self-

expression.