Tarot Cards: who knew?
I'm creating a set for Empress Editions
Hi, gang!
You know what I did today? I went to see Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler with a little visit from Rachel Dratch (THE most onomatopoetic last name for a character actor, ever) The opener? My Instagram favorite! Laura Ramoso! I think I was the most star struck by her! So unexpected!
Anyhoo. My big New Year’s resolution was to go see more things at night. I live in a good city with lots to do and yet, I do not. To justify paying the real estate taxes, I thought I could trick my husband into loving the city by finding great things do that we couldn’t do if we were living in tax free New Hampshire. Yet, I struggle to find enthusiasm to leave my room post 7 PM.
Today, I did go see a thing! But, without my husband and during the day, and I was about 20th in line for the giveaway (a huge thank you to Diana for giving them away and then to Katherine for bringing me from the text chain!). It felt good to waltz across the common with a friend and a purpose to go to a fun event.
If you get to see Tina and Amy be prepared for a little frealousy. That’s friend-jealousy. These two are so in synch, it’s adorable. You need over thirty years of non-stop working together to achieve what they have, so cut yourself some slack. Their’s is a magic friendship.
I hope this was the beginning of more outings and I need to remember to bring my husband.
A wee flex AND an outing? Our daughter is playing Boston Calling this coming week! Go Bebe! And…She has a new album out!!
Onward…
TAROT CARDS?
I am doing a set of tarot cards to be published by
and Empress Editions. Some of you know my painting series, Kim’s Little Women. Alisa Kennedy Jones saw my series and said “You must do a story card set of these women and we will publish them!” Now we are planning a tarot card set instead, but do you know why I started doing the paintings in the first place?
In 2013 I was in a graduate program getting my MFA at The Museum School (Tufts) and was spending a lot of time at The Museum of Fine Arts. The MFA has a large collection of BNW paintings. That’s Big Naked Women paintings. Voluptuous women who look like all they want out of life is to get laid, roughly or sweetly, but let’s go. It bothered me.
All of the painters in the BNW era were men, generally. We women weren’t allowed into the studio schools for fear the naked human models would corrupt us (and yet those paintings…and the models who sat for them?). I wondered how women would have depicted a naked woman, same allegory or biblical story, in contrast to the men?
From there I started doing warm up paintings in ink and gouache. Simple free hand paintings of women doing things. Clothed or naked. Chubby or skinny. Old or young, but generally middle aged. The focus was on their awkward body language and facial expressions. The paintings are comedic, but melancholy in their way. Below is a comparison of styles BNW (Big Naked Women both by Titian Rape of Europa at Boston’s Gardner Museum and his Venus of Urbino) vs KLW (Kim’s Little Women).
Here is an article that talks about the sexualization of women in painting in the Renaissance but misses the point that women in private, don’t look like the paintings as painted by men. They do note that they were basically soft porn, kept in bedrooms).
There is a lot to unpack in the visuals above. I’ll do a post on that someday. But, back to the tarot cards.
I met a woman who promised to email me, but didn’t, a few weeks ago. She and her husband are into the occasional “pulling of cards.” They had pulled a card each before they went out that evening! I was going to ask her a bunch of questions but alas, she disappeared.
MEET ME IN THE COMMENTS!
Are any of you into tarot cards? what is it about them? I’d love to ask you some questions. Please comment below! Or, DM me!
xo
K
For me, tarot cards not a way of predicting the future. But they're an excellent way to show me where I should be directing my attention!
(I do not think of tarot as religious at all and it’s not like doing “fortune telling” in my experience. The art, history, and meaning of the cards that I use and nature inspired. There are different types that speak to individuals). I saw the fun side of tarot in my childhood (in the 70s). The women in my family talked more about using tarot to harness intuition. For me it was an early lesson in that specifically- and I’ve always trusted my intuition. I suspect this played a part in that?)