The Lost Tarot Cards of Dominic Murphy

Autumn has arrived with its cold wet grey days and early evenings so it's time to present some decks that fit the feeling one gets from all this time of the year.
The The Lost Tarot Cards by British artist Dominic Murphy positions itself at the darker side of the autumn/end of summer spectrum (and although Halloween is still a month away this deck would be perfect for that) , no surprise knowing that the artist describes the inspiration to become a painter (seeing Bacon's portrait of pope Innocent) as "Francis Bacon ruined my life"

Murphy a prolific artist who also created some card decks before has now turned his attention to the tarot, his extended tarot deck (the majors plus 'lost cards' of the artist own imagination)  is executed in his own style that I'd call dark surrealism and shows the art of a schooled accomplished artist.  Showcasing lot's of sculls, alchemical & occult symbology and grim/severe facial expressions this is not a deck made to make you smile or feel better,  but one of those deck that feel magical and bizarre in a 'good way'.

The deck presents itself as a Major Arcana + Oracle deck, so on the one part the artst had he structure he had to follow for the first 22 cards, but could let his imagination run wild in any direction it wanted for the rest of the deck, and Mr Murphy sure has an interesting imagination to say the least...

This 36 cards edition (the artist still works on some more cards, not a 78 but rather a 54 cards deck, in the same structure as now 22 majors + extra cards) was only printed in a very limited edition of 10 because 2 cards: The devil card and the Hesperus card where misprinted, namely with a to small white border.


You can get his artwork friom his ebay store or his Facebook shop and also look at his work at his website

Update: o coincidence the same day I post about this version of the deck the artist starts selling his completed deck on his eBay store! 

The Fialko Tarot by Jeff Fialko

Rejoice tarot collectors of all nations, Adam McLean, fellow collector of tarot (with a truelly HUGE) collection has restarted to produce limited edition tarot decks in his  Artwork Tarots, after his project was stopped because of the theft of the Intellectual Property rights by scrupulous people sharing these free on internet thus making it unprofitable for Adam to continue the project.

Earlier this year he started experimenting with the new high quality printer and discovered a way to produce very good quality tarot cards in a way that is both more cost effective and faster than before, resulting in the fact he can now sell them at half the price of his earlier editions. Other changes he made are that he no longer prints card backs,  has reduced the size of the editions from 100 to only 50 and finally the customized boxes are replaced by clear plastic ones. This all will result in the fact that editions will sell out very faster and be followed by new ones, and based on how successful this edition was he is considering putting out more decks.

Indeed I wrote "was" because deck number 24 in the Artwork Tarots series the "The Fialko Tarot" by American artist and singer Jeff Fialko (hence the name) is already sold out, and it has only taken a bit over a week to do so, speaking of a succes, this is one! You can see some more of the deck at Adam's page about it...sadly that is all no more decks for sale.

The deck itself is filled with attractive looking slender yet believable normal humans, esoteric images and filled up with flowing lines, curves and roots(?). personally..the style reminds me a  lot of American comic books from the 70ies and 80ies( and to some extent the) 90ies.....

Twilight Rabbit Tarot by Jessica Clayman

There are many animal themed decks out there both self published or by big companies, featuring all kinds of animals but decks with rabbits there are few (as a matter of fact this is only the 2nd one I found and bought).

The artist has worked 5 entire years on this deck  of anthropomorphic rabbits featured in images that are interesting renderings of the WCS-tarot but seen through rabbit eyes. The cards echo at some places classical works of art, general culture or ancient mythology  (doesn't that empress remind you of a certain Venus and that 3 of cups made me think of Alice in Wonderland...) there is even place for my favorite Egyptian deity.

The deck is for sale at miss  Clayman's Etsy shop in 2 versions an 78 cards one and one with 83 cards where the 5 extra cards are Thoth-tarot versions of The Emperor, The Star, Lust and Adjustment (Balance) and also an Happy Squirrel card.

But wait there is more for those who doesn't get enough of this rabbit-o-rama there is the website wwww.twilightrabbit.com Fitting the theme the suits have been renamed to Clover (= Wands), Passions (= Cups), Carrots (= Swords)  and Stone (= Pentacles). The court cards became : Throne, Jack, Queen and King 

Millénaire Tarot de Marseilles (Second edition) by Chris Butler

Here's yet another little precious one to add to the neo-Marseille* part of my collection!

This version, as did the previous one, was created from only photoshop custom shapes and clipart to form a modern, and tongue-in cheek Marseilles deck. Stylistically size- and colorwise Chris took inspiration from the Flornoy restoration of the Noblet Tarot but that is where it started but it ended up becomming a very modern vibrant even with a certain pro-active feeling to them, especially in the minors and it's workable deck for readings and a great item for the collector.

For those on FaceBook here is the page for this deck

and you can contact Christ through here

A Thelemic Tarot

For one who's not into the Crowley/Harris Thoth deck, not that i don't love it, it just doesn't do anything for me, I sure like it's derivatives! Compared to the other 2 big traditions in tarot namely the Waithe Coleman Smith and the Marseilles there are extremely few Thoth remakes so each one is special to me.

So last week one of these specials back from the '70ies arrived in my post namely the A Thelemic Tarot - The Major Arcana created and published in a limited edition of only 499 decks by Augustus Donelly back in 1977, the deck is one of those to-color-decks complete with instruction leaflet, reproduced (photcopied?) from a handwritten original. The artist writes: " I have tried to remain as close as possible to the structure of the Lady Frieda Harris pack which was painted under the personal guidance of Crowley. The designs which differ greatly are a result personal experience during meditation ... the power remains the same" The artist clearly expected that this deck would be used with Crowley's Book of Thoth and thus no guide book is provided with the deck.