this is about the phantomwise tarot

 

As some of you may know, during 2006-2009 I painted a 78-card tarot deck in black and white and shades of grey. I spent the same approximate time writing and re-writing The Night Circus. I lived in monochrome for a good long while there, and there are references to the circus in some of the cards.

All of the paintings can be viewed on phantomwise.com. (Click on the aptly-named gallery.)

There was a stunning 100-copy limited edition deck of the 22 Major Arcana cards, which was available over here but is currently sold out. Sometimes they will show up on tarot trading sites and such.

I get asked this a lot lately, so to publicly clarify: I do not have a publisher for the complete deck yet.

It is on my ever-growing to-do list and I promise I do intend to get the deck published because I want it to be available for the tarot-loving masses, but I also wrote a book and it sort of ate my life. (If you happen to be a tarot publisher and are interested in publishing the deck, please feel free to contact me.)

The tarot aficionados will likely appreciate this aspect of my current life balance issues: in the summer of 2009, just before I started querying literary agents, I had a wonderful professional tarot reading and the only negative element was in art/writing balance, where The Tower showed up to remind me that I cannot give all of my energy to different things without falling down. Something had to take priority, and the universe clearly and loudly decided it would be writing.

My apologies for the continued wait, but I want to give the deck the time and energy it deserves, including possibly touching up some of the paintings, so it’s going to take a while. Thank you for your patience.

 

may

Other people have likely said more articulate and poignant things than I can manage for today.

It is a sunshine-soaked Monday. It is, somehow, strange time that tumbles ever on, already May.

I bought an orchid this morning that looks as though it has been splattered with paint.

flax-golden tales: the friend factory

the friend factory

It’s the latest craze in dolls, so she simply has to have one.

I can’t really complain, I remember my own rabid Cabbage Patch days.

I told her to think about it, explained over and over that it would have to be her only birthday present but she never even waffled, it was all she wanted.

She carried the catalog around constantly. She even took it to bed with her.

I called six weeks in advance and I still only got an appointment because someone canceled, they said the wait was nearing three months but they tried to give cancellation spot priority to birthdays whenever possible. I joked that people probably lie to get them, then, and they told me I had to send a copy of her birth certificate for verification.

On appointment day, they gave us a tour of the facility before they took her to the lab for testing, explaining the manufacturing process and how “friends” (they never call them “dolls”) are uniquely calibrated and programmed to be exactly what each child needs in a playtime companion.

I thought it was kind of creepy, but she adored every minute. Especially the factory floor with row after row of empty heads.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

flax-golden tales: death awaits you all

death awaits you all

Most of them stand on the steps in front of the doors for some time before making their decision.

Marking the the obvious differences and missing the subtle ones.

(The bunny is the most obvious difference. The hand-drawn bunny sitting patiently beneath a shining sun, distracting from the fact that the doorknobs do not match, that only one door has a mail slot, that the doors themselves are painted two slightly different shades of black, one glossier than the other.)

Most take their time, but some choose quickly, as though they already knew which door they wanted before they arrived.

There are all kinds of seekers, drawn to the doors for their own private reasons, on their own personal quests.

Businessmen in suits and small children in striped socks.

Bike messengers and conquistadors and leaflet-carrying proselytizers.

But they always choose the bunny door.

And they’re always wrong.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.