Latest / PNW Haunts & Homicides / Beyond the Cards: Art, Tarot, and Liminal Spaces

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Beyond the Cards: Art, Tarot, and Liminal Spaces · PNW Haunts & Homicides

• 0:00
  Sometimes in tarot and other practices, people can get very rigid in things where they'll pull a card and it will mean only exactly what they have memorized it means.
• 0:12
  Yeah.
• 0:13
  And there may be like no ill intention with that, but sometimes people just, I don't think rut is the right word, but it's the closest where they're following the guideline.
• 0:23
  Right.
• 0:23
  So they're doing it correctly versus what are the fluffy gray lines on the outside?
• 0:29
  Yeah, they're like the people that follow the recipe to the tea and like don't add extra garlic, you know what I mean?
• 0:35
  Yeah.
• 0:36
  It's David, right?
• 0:39
  It is David, correct.
• 0:40
  From whiskey.
• 0:41
  What is it?
• 0:42
  It's whiskey terra foxtrot.
• 0:44
  Thank you.
• 0:45
  I kept saying whiskey foxtrot tarot and I was like, no, that's the wrong order because I'm slightly dyslexic.
• 0:51
  I think it's a, um, I, people come up all the time and they kind of just, I can see their whole brain squint at the sign.
• 0:59
  I'm like, yes, this, this is good.
• 1:01
  Yes.
• 1:02
  I met you at the Tacoma Haunted Farmers Market and I walked past your booth and I saw whiskey first and I was like, oh, whiskey.
• 1:11
  Okay, what's this about?
• 1:12
  And then I saw like tarot stuff.
• 1:16
  No, it's painful.
• 1:17
  Yeah, I know.
• 1:18
  I was like, dang it, no samples. I'm walking away. But no, then your art like drew me in.
• 1:23
  Thank you.
• 1:24
  I think pretty much the first thing I saw I bought, which was the Mothman print and it was so cute.
• 1:31
  And I was just seeing Mothman stuff everywhere all over in every booth and I was eyeballing everything and like nothing was just like hitting.
• 1:39
  It was, I don't know.
• 1:41
  And then I saw that and it's just a little Mothman and he's like on a lamp post like on the light.
• 1:47
  It was just so cute. So like I have to buy this.
• 1:49
  Something I like to share with people about that one and especially since you mentioned it, you were leaning that way.
• 1:55
  The reference photo for that one was actually a cat looking over the edge of a table.
• 2:00
  Oh.
• 2:01
  And that kind of ties into, I get a lot of kids and teenagers talking about like art tips and
• 2:08
  unconventional ways to do things. But I feel like using that reference photo kind of set it apart from some of the other things people see with Mothman.
• 2:19
  And I've had people call it specifically on that before.
• 2:22
  Yeah. Maybe that's a drew to me, drew me to it because I'd love cats too.
• 2:27
  I don't really trust anyone who like flat out like hates cats.
• 2:31
  Like if you're not a cat person, that's one thing.
• 2:34
  But I grew up with a bunch of guys like, oh, I hate cats.
• 2:38
  Like that ties into some other things. But it's always interesting.
• 2:43
  Yeah. I know. My, well, my co-host is allergic.
• 2:47
  No, she's actually really allergic. She's like, I actually do like cats, but I just can't.
• 2:53
  I can't get close to them or I'll literally die.
• 2:56
  I've also noticed that some, I know at least a couple people that are deathly allergic to cats and they're some of the most cat living people I have ever met.
• 3:08
  And that is really unfortunate.
• 3:10
  I would be so sad.
• 3:12
  I come over and we open all the windows and
• 3:14
  oh.
• 3:16
  Okay. So I ended up buying this print and it wasn't the large one like I wanted because I was on a little bit of a budget.
• 3:22
  So I had to ask you if there was a smaller print, which is kind of sometimes embarrassing because I'm like, hey, can I have something cheaper?
• 3:30
  Yeah, that is the biggest reason that I have like more than a couple of different sizes because someone eventually is going to come through and either want a really tiny one that kind of just fits in the exact right place or a really big one that they're going to put somewhere really weird and telling about it later.
• 3:51
  And that's great.
• 3:53
  Yeah. And the big one just drew me in like I don't know if I would have maybe seen it if it was just the smaller one out.
• 4:00
  But then we got to chatting and you told me that you're into tarot and you are actually designing your own tarot act.
• 4:09
  Yes. And it's a, I want to say it's around 60% done. I would have to do math real quick on that.
• 4:16
  So I'll save that for later.
• 4:18
  How many cards 72 or 78?
• 4:20
  It's 78 cards plus a couple more because the back as well as the typography are also hand drawn.
• 4:27
  I decided that I'm going to finish everything before the end of the year, but also at the same time put all the specs out there for the Kickstarter so that people can watch it get finished and jump on it right as soon as it's available.
• 4:45
  Because it's also since it's traditional, I have to scan each one at a local company which adds other layers.
• 4:53
  I never even thought about the process of making a Darro deck, a tarot deck and like getting it made, doing the actual art and like getting it printed onto cards, like what type of cards, where do you, where does that all happen?
• 5:08
  This is a pretty in depth process.
• 5:11
  Definitely. Most of the time when I see other people doing a project like this, it's either an oracle deck, which is more like a 52 cards or even sometimes people start out with 20 cards and then they add booster packs or something like that.
• 5:27
  When I've seen people do the traditional 78, it's much smaller pieces, more like an 8 by 10 for each one.
• 5:36
  Each one of these is 12 by 16 and I have no idea where that measurement came up, but that's what it started and what I'm sticking with.
• 5:47
  I feel like it might have made things a little bit more complicated than necessary, but it also lets me get in with a lot of other details that doing things more of a normal size would not necessarily let me.
• 6:00
  Is it like a traditional tarot deck where it's the bigger cards or is it a different size even than that?
• 6:06
  It is the long tarot cards, the traditional size, and I'm looking forward to formatting everything.
• 6:12
  The aspect ratio is different, so it'll be mostly the finished piece, the digital scan, and then down at the bottom will be the typography from a different piece.
• 6:22
  So let's talk about some of the artwork that's on the cards. To me, they look super haunting and I just love it, like dark and but also beautiful.
• 6:34
  My work for some reason attracts a lot of kids. Most of the time I say, "Oh, my work attracts a lot of kids and people assume that I mean the stuffed animal section."
• 6:45
  It's actually some of the dark art that has, I'm really bad at telling ages, but I want to say like eight and nine year olds come up and look a lot closer at things.
• 6:57
  And it's really fascinating to have even just tiny conversations with them about what it reminds them of.
• 7:05
  Or if they do like Halloween, we can talk about how spooky isn't necessarily bad and the spooky that they're seeing in the princée kind of makes them think more about things versus monsters straight out.
• 7:20
  That's why the word haunting I think came to me, but that might be scary to some people, but for me haunting means beautiful.
• 7:29
  Oh, that reminds me in the beginning before we even started recording. I was like, "You remind me of Shelby Oaks because it's not giving anything away, but there's a shiny eye situation in that movie."
• 7:41
  And that looks exactly like that.
• 7:43
  I moved the little webcam and I tried to put my glasses back on for blue light stuff and it is crazy.
• 7:50
  It's even worse. Oh my gosh.
• 7:52
  It looks like you've on purpose put like moving Google E eyes on there.
• 7:56
  I'm going to actually take those off because it looks like I'm staring at you really pointedly.
• 8:01
  I'm not creeped out. I might creep myself out. So I'm okay with that. I could see that.
• 8:06
  Circling back around to what you're saying about the kids being attracted to your artwork.
• 8:12
  A lot of it is like animal related.
• 8:15
  What's your favorite animal to use in the artwork?
• 8:19
  I think the easiest would probably be foxes because I grew up a lot drawing dogs and I was a big neopet kind of kid.
• 8:31
  Those are all sorts of different mishmash of different animals.
• 8:35
  But a lot of more dogs like the back legs and everything. It just translated as I got older.
• 8:41
  Probably the foxes and the crows.
• 8:44
  Crows, I love them. When I got away from drawing like dragons so much that was more popular in finding books at the library.
• 8:55
  That was how to draw 50 dogs or like how to draw 50 birds and then I found the favorites.
• 9:02
  I like that. I like that you answered fox because obviously it's in your name.
• 9:06
  Oh yes. And I also love crows. I want to see what is the card with the crow on it.
• 9:12
  Crows are dominant in the ones suit.
• 9:16
  A lot of that suit has to do with technology and cameras and then also moving over to like the LEDs in different technology and then moving over to candles and such.
• 9:29
  But the page, night and then what's typically the king and the queen are all crows.
• 9:36
  Crows, for obvious reasons it kind of represents the intelligence factor of things.
• 9:42
  The very hands on the kind of bridging the gap between pentacles and wands is the idea of doing things with your hands can be a spiritual action.
• 9:56
  Kind of an engage your brain type away.
• 10:00
  So in the wands suit, it very naturally organically drifted over to the ace of wands is a candle, but the two of wands is a very kind of protest coded individual with mask and hoodie and everything with two glowing eyes because sometimes you have to just.
• 10:24
  There would be no technology if someone didn't have the idea first, so it's kind of the both sides of the coin of you can be completely logical, but you have to have kind of that spark of creativity, which to me translates to what spirituality should really be.
• 10:42
  It's the application of things, not just the purely cerebral aspect of things.
• 10:48
  I love that you were just we were talking about your glowing eyes and then we ended up talking about we're not on video for everyone to see, but we can see each other and David was wearing glasses and there was like a reflection that made him look like he had these two glowing eyes that were just bearing into my soul.
• 11:06
  I think in terms of stories a lot, but especially since I'm in my 30s and it's 2025, I do make a lot of like movie and video game references.
• 11:18
  So just putting that out there before I say there is a new silent hill game that came out that involves a very traditionally Japanese like historically dressed essentially fox guy.
• 11:34
  Where he's human except for a fox mask and like long white kimono and everything.
• 11:39
  I might not be the right word, but I don't know someone will tell us he's very distracting. I can put it that way in the best way.
• 11:47
  He's all in white and his white hair and everything. The whites of his eyes are black and then his irises are like a pale blue glow very similar to how that was.
• 12:02
  It's so creepy, but like cool.
• 12:06
  A big part of why I wanted to start the deck other than making something that I wanted to actually use was sometimes in tarot and other practices.
• 12:17
  People can get very rigid in things where they'll pull a card and it will mean only exactly what they have memorized it means.
• 12:26
  And there may be like no ill intention with that, but sometimes people just I don't think rut is the right word, but it's the closest where they're following the guidelines.
• 12:38
  Right. So they're doing it correctly versus what are the fluffy gray lines on the outside.
• 12:45
  Yeah, they're like the people that follow the recipe to the tea and like don't add extra garlic. You know what I mean?
• 12:52
  Too many people tend to treat everything like it's baking and you have to do everything with precision.
• 12:58
  But more in life is more like cooking where you can you can fudge it a little bit. You can make substitutions and even in kind of the baking framework.
• 13:08
  If you know exactly why it works, then you can do other things on top of it.
• 13:14
  And in my experience, people kind of get a little afraid of that, but they don't want to admit that that's what it is.
• 13:22
  So they buy the guidebook where they buy their fifth deck that's a redraw of the traditional ones.
• 13:29
  I have not done tarot for very long. It's only been like since we started the podcast.
• 13:34
  Okay. So like maybe five years at this point.
• 13:38
  So we got the interpretation books so that we could kind of like learn as we go. So when we draw a card, we kind of read from that or even like Google things or we'll look at the smaller interpretation books that usually come with the deck.
• 13:52
  So we'll use like a couple of different things. But then as well as look at the card and kind of see what we feel about it or add little inserts of things, kind of relating it to what we're talking about.
• 14:07
  So it kind of, it makes it stick in your brain a little bit more, but also you're kind of adding your own interpretations to the interpretations if that made any sense.
• 14:19
  Just a preface, I don't remember exactly when I consider myself having started tarot. So you may actually have more experience with it than I do.
• 14:28
  But we probably just came at it from similar directions, but different backgrounds and everybody has that.
• 14:36
  In short, I have a very religious background. Oh shit. In a mainstream religion. I don't want to turn the whole conversation into just about that particular religion because it's very easy to do.
• 14:52
  Yeah, I'm okay. I mean, we go there all the time anyway.
• 14:55
  That's right. I'd be happy to just with the way my brain works. I don't want to just turn it into an anti-Sermon. Let me put it that way.
• 15:06
  You're right. We're talking about art here.
• 15:09
  Exactly. Yeah. Sometimes people can bring the baggage of that kind of thing into other practices where even though it's not under that heading anymore and not under that label, they can find things like how to do tarot.
• 15:24
  And be very like, no, we got to do it by the book. You don't have to.
• 15:33
  Right. Because that's like you were doing it by the Bible. And like tarot is not the interpretation book isn't the Bible. Like you feel it.
• 15:41
  Yeah. That's the like there's there are good things in every like realm of things spiritually and otherwise.
• 15:50
  But you got to make some decisions with like does that mean it's exclusive to this one bucket over here and sometimes especially when people have had the type of background that I have, it can be really hard to get away from the feeling of like all this this manual what wasn't it.
• 16:10
  So we need to find a different manual and follow it like we did the other one and yeah, that also ain't it.
• 16:16
  But everyone has to go through that process right your own manual and then don't follow that either.
• 16:24
  Yeah. It's keep changing it. Make up new rules every day. That's how I live my life. Plot twist.
• 16:30
  Someone wants paraphrased it for me where I was saying something about like positive chaos and kind of stopped what.
• 16:37
  So basically, basically freedom where people hear the word chaos and think all things exploding and everything going wrong. No positive practical chaos is rolling with things and not being hung up on what actually keeps you from your goals.
• 16:57
  Which is very natural I guess and I'm a big proponent of humans are supposed to hibernate.
• 17:05
  Then big box stores came along stuck a wrench in that went no you have to work over Christmas and like no that's not how it should be.
• 17:14
  I know even though Christmas was stolen from the pagans whatever we should still should not work.
• 17:22
  You all what I know about it promotes very much a like getting ready to hibernate kind of thing.
• 17:30
  You stick more forks in it and like no this is the most stressful time of year for a lot of people.
• 17:36
  It doesn't have to be that way but yeah. I'm trying to try to fix that in my life. It's getting smaller and more intimate on the Christmas and more spending time and less gifting and things like that.
• 17:50
  But excellent idea. Gifts are great though. And you know what you should buy for people is like independent art.
• 17:59
  So do you have a whole website with different art on it?
• 18:02
  I do yes. And also I want to say I am biased but I can appreciate talking about go more independent like go more direct.
• 18:10
  Yeah. Yeah. I do have a website. I am the only one who runs it. So every now and then there is a different kind of fork stuck in whatever.
• 18:19
  Wigit and I always encourage people to tell me when that happens because I can look at it from back doors and everything.
• 18:26
  So there is portfolio. There's a blog. There is a page of books and also the webshop.
• 18:35
  And it's instead of whiskey tariff box. It's actually called Blackbird parlor.
• 18:41
  Until further notice when I can afford the separate website.
• 18:45
  I love that it's Blackbird too because like we were just talking about crows. I feel like there's a theme here. I really like it.
• 18:52
  Yes. Do you have any booths coming up?
• 18:55
  The organizer of the Haunted Farmers Market is doing a creep miss market at Magnuson Hanger.
• 19:01
  They're so genius. I want to go.
• 19:05
  Tacoma to Seattle is definitely a big jump. But I have already been told by quite a few people that they're really excited for that one because it's much closer and kind of what people perceive as more centrally located, I guess.
• 19:23
  It is also two days, which I am really excited for because then I get to leave stuff.
• 19:29
  Yeah, yeah, it's hard. It's hard to pack and set up that stuff. Oh my gosh.
• 19:36
  It's an acquired skill. I am of the generation that definitely grew up playing Tetris on the living room floor.
• 19:46
  And sometimes packing the car is a lot like that.
• 19:50
  Seriously. Like we had no idea when we were getting into podcasting, like what the fuck we were doing.
• 19:55
  And we ended up like starting to do festivals and like these market things.
• 20:01
  And we don't have stuff to sell.
• 20:03
  Oh, yeah.
• 20:04
  And we're struggling. Like, and then I'm looking around at these people with all of this inventory and it's like stuff that they've made.
• 20:12
  And I'm like, oh my god, we just have to like pack a mini tarot and like decorations and a wheel and.
• 20:20
  But like we're struggling with three people. So do you run the booth by yourself or do you ever have help most of the time I run it by myself every now and then the person I was talking about.
• 20:33
  She used to help me more, but she has a very different job than I do.
• 20:37
  So asking her to take up weekends as well as not fair.
• 20:43
  But every now and then she's also there, but vast majority of the time it's by myself.
• 20:49
  You don't really think about it until you're doing it. It's like, oh my god. Like, how do I even take a break?
• 20:54
  Like you can't just leave your booth, you know?
• 20:57
  Yeah, it's unless you have a tag team.
• 21:00
  Depending on the type of events, sometimes I'm able to put a sign up and then notify the people on either side of me.
• 21:08
  Like there is nobody else here with me if someone like takes a shelf that's bad.
• 21:13
  But sometimes it is, I'm able to talk to someone on either side of me and it'll be like a husband and wife team and they're perfectly fine with me saying like, hey, could I step out for five minutes and I also typically have my service dog.
• 21:33
  So sometimes that pre tips people off to like, yes, I need to go real quick and then I come back and most of the time people are fine with that.
• 21:42
  That is nice to about like the community of what are we? What do we call these things like market market, the market community?
• 21:50
  It works. That's booth runner community. I don't know. You know what I'm trying to say.
• 21:55
  Very occasionally there's like some weird rotten apple of stuff.
• 22:01
  I'm not here to talk about that. I try to default to the everything is fine until it's not fine, but then that's a whole other.
• 22:10
  Different discussion, but it's pretty good. It's like sometimes I can literally just tell someone that my sign is up and I feel perfectly fine with running to the bathroom or taking care of the dog and I have never had problems yet.
• 22:26
  Yeah, so if you're very a festival and the booth person isn't there, like hang around a minute if you're interested and you want to buy something don't get impatient with people.
• 22:35
  What got you into tarot? What sparked it? Trying to kind of find a period of time where I was more free to basically get a tarot deck if I really wanted one.
• 22:51
  As I said, I used to have a very, very religious background. For lack of a better term, there was a period of my life where I pulled the plug just cut and dried, pulled everything and shifted a lot of direction in my life.
• 23:07
  So there were a couple years where I didn't really identify as pagan or witch or anything. But as I started to realize I did like those terms. So if I was going to use those terms, I should probably do my research.
• 23:23
  Yeah, thank goodness. That was about the time that I started noticing that these things were popping up a little bit more in my life where it wasn't necessarily an algorithm kind of thing.
• 23:38
  For example, my first tarot deck was themed around a podcast called Welcome to Night Vale. And that's one that I definitely recommend to pretty much everybody.
• 23:50
  It's like a more candy colored version of somewhere between the Magnus archives and kind of eerie Indiana vibes.
• 23:58
  But I was poking around in their merch shop and they carried a tarot deck. And I had already looked at them through Etsy and other things. And theirs was $20, I think, which was a really good price, a really good steal.
• 24:16
  So I up and got it in and I'm a very tactile and visual person. So it was kind of the gateway toward this is something that I can hold in my hand. I can do this on my terms, but also read the articles and everything.
• 24:30
  So I think it was probably revolving around that the kind of it also did not come with a guidebook, which I feel like informed a lot of my developing practices of yeah, but comes after just take a look first.
• 24:50
  Like intuitively feel what you feel in the cards before you look at the guide and that one in particular has some crazy art.
• 25:00
  I always feel like I was too not scared to do tarot because of religion or anything like that. And I just felt like if I was a witch, I would have known.
• 25:13
  I don't know why I don't know where that came from, but I just always was like, oh, well, I'm not a witch. So I can't do the tarot.
• 25:21
  I can see where you would come from with that. That might be some kind of the word I can only think of as like layover. That's not the right term.
• 25:30
  I kind of like bleed over I guess from I know a lot of people hear which and they think of like in a religious sense, but going into it, I knew that which was a little bit different.
• 25:42
  Which is like Baker or like lawyer and things. That's the thing that you do, I guess. Yeah.
• 25:47
  But I can see that someone who doesn't really have those connections would hear which and think like like priest like I'm not allowed to wear that because I'm not a priest.
• 25:59
  And since I'm not a witch, I'm not going to get one of XYZ exactly.
• 26:04
  Yeah, I think it's because we weren't really like exposed to it or I wasn't exposed to it as much other than you know like Sabrina the teenage which or whatever.
• 26:13
  Little witches with powers like Halloween town. It's like you were a witch with powers or you weren't.
• 26:20
  And I was like, well, I don't have to magic shooting from my fingers. So like I can't be a witch. And then when I got into an adult, I was like, wait a minute.
• 26:29
  Why did I just like discounted this thing? I was so interested in my entire life.
• 26:34
  And then now I'm like learning, oh, I can that's not actually what that means. Like it took me until I was like 30 to realize that you can be a witch if you want to be.
• 26:45
  That's a really interesting perspective because I was just thinking just now that I think I mentioned that even if we ended up at mostly the same spot, we kind of came at it from different directions.
• 26:58
  Because I did grow up with things like Halloween town, but I also in like late teens early 20s, I watched things like supernatural and I had my own computer.
• 27:11
  So I was purring a little bit. We want to. But watching things like like the craft. I didn't watch that until I was like 30. That was fun movie.
• 27:22
  Where was I? So I had a little bit more of a frame of reference for it being a thing that you learn and then do versus kind of like the Harry Potter dichotomy of genetic lottery.
• 27:38
  And I know I was like, where's my letter to fucking Hogwarts? I'm a Hufflepuff. Let's go. I don't really do Harry Potter stuff anymore, but a lot of the parallels and like the structure still is really interesting because like waiting for somebody to tell you that your special area allowed to do something versus.
• 28:02
  I don't think there were many quote unquote good witches in supernatural, but it was always like the mom down the street decided to be a witch now. And it was always framed as a like be very careful with the stuff that you do versus just predisposition or something like that.
• 28:22
  I don't know if I'm loose with the rules or whatever, but I'm just like I come at it where I just feel protected and I feel like nothing is going to get at me and I like set intentions of like being protected.
• 28:35
  So I'm not too concerned with like something bad getting in because I'm doing witchcraft or something like that, which I think a lot of people are concerned about, which is if you are, you know, make like a salt circle or do more intense things if that's what you're concerned about, but I'm I'm just not that makes sense from my experience kind of reaching out to like which tags on social media and different groups and stuff.
• 29:02
  I think some of that idea comes from other people talking about it and like I don't mean to attribute any like specific motivations, but it's kind of the sense of when people watch a lot of movies with witches and then someone pulls the death card.
• 29:23
  Even if you know that's not what it means, if you watch enough of those movies, sometimes there is a very subtle sense of, but what of this time it means that.
• 29:34
  Right. I know I was laughing at some movie the other day. I don't even know what it was and they're like, they pulled the death card and all the done, done music.
• 29:44
  And I was like, that just mean you need to like dump your boyfriend or something like things are fine. Don't be boyfriend. Maybe quit your job.
• 29:53
  Take a road trip that you've always wanted to do something like that, but change it up.
• 29:59
  Let's let something go.
• 30:01
  For example, on tarot, I've always read the devil card has not so much like, you need to like change everything up or like someone's lying to you or really heavy things like that.
• 30:13
  It's always been about perceptions to me because like the devil was not portrayed as like a red guy with like hooves and horns.
• 30:25
  At least to the extent today until pan came into the picture.
• 30:31
  Oh yeah.
• 30:32
  To me it's more about perceptions. And at one point I was really frustrated. I couldn't find like a shirt I was looking for for an event.
• 30:41
  So I pulled a tarot card and it ended up being the devil and a blue screen for a second.
• 30:48
  After processing for a second, I sat down on the floor because perspectives and everything. And I forget exactly where I found it.
• 30:56
  But it was somewhere weird that I would not have thought of unless I sat on the floor and looked like back at the door in a way I normally don't.
• 31:06
  Like under the bed or like between cushions or something. Yeah. Cause that's how I decorate.
• 31:11
  It's just aesthetic. Okay.
• 31:13
  I love a good like fantasy B movie or like sci fi B movie. But that's also when they do things like pull death or the tower or the devil.
• 31:25
  It's like this is what it means in that universe. If I pull that later sometimes it just means go to the dishes.
• 31:32
  Yeah.
• 31:33
  The perspective on two always reminds me of the hang demand like people always think the hanged man is one of like kind of equivalent to death.
• 31:42
  And I'm like no, do you see like he's kind of happy just like upside down in this old little world like hanging out.
• 31:50
  Most of the illustrations for that have always looked a little bit lemony snick it ish to me.
• 31:57
  Yeah. It's a weird uncle that you have or like a member of the Adams family that's just I need to go think.
• 32:04
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 32:06
  Is there anything you specifically want to talk about that I haven't touched on like about your art or your business?
• 32:11
  It's something that occasionally I have difficulty like quantifying. But it's always something that I'm interested in very willing to talk about is.
• 32:21
  I think I mentioned something earlier about like yes I did in a sense pick this job.
• 32:31
  But the for reasons that my service dog exists it kind of ties into the I used to work retail and I've done some office jobs and things.
• 32:43
  But I a lot of the time when I talk about how I have to do this because of my health I know sometimes people are kind of wary of conversation not getting like super deep into that area.
• 32:58
  But whenever people hear me thank them for coming by to visit I try to impress upon them that I really I really do mean that because it's.
• 33:09
  The all of the creativity and all the things that I am able to do with scheduling and what resources I do have it's under a certain kind of pressure of sometimes people talk about the feast and famine cycles and everything I don't really have fallbacks for when it is like the famine cycles and things and.
• 33:32
  I've been doing this for a few years and learning a lot of things but it's still in terms of numbers very very not supporting yeah.
• 33:47
  So when people are able to come by I try to give people really good experience to really cool vibes where it's more than just visiting a shop.
• 33:57
  I kind of joke on half joke on social media that it's a little bit of a pocket dimension that I try to share with people because it's part of the comfortable space in my brain that I would really love to share and that's also a big reason that I have been very proactive in support in promoting the Kickstarter because once that goes through in one way or another that is a whole lot of work that I don't need to do again.
• 34:26
  But also it's a huge step towards sharing the particularly like comfy weird vibes that I've been trying to share all along so it's it's the weird limbo between it would really really help me out in various reasons that I picked this yes but I was also kind of shoved into it.
• 34:50
  But also give people a return on their investment I think is the best way to put that where I've always wanted to be working for the support that I get yeah but the kickstarter is the biggest way to finally pull the trigger of having the funding to scan everything and all of my time to format and XYZ and finally have something really big to put out.
• 35:14
  We were just talking about the movie Shelby Oaks that started as a kickstarter so like okay I am suddenly way more interested in that movie.
• 35:22
  I know that's why I'm like telling everyone about it and I went to see it in the movie theater because well if I'm going to pay $20 to go to the movie theater like I'm going to give it to someone who worked really hard and to get there and had to ask for help and had people help them.
• 35:37
  That's definitely going way higher on my list.
• 35:50
  I know what it means but other people might not.
• 36:10
  The big sense is an in between space or like an in between stage of something where we live there used to be a gap in the fence that we could run over and it was a really quick way to get like over to grocery stores and pharmacy and whatever before they filled that in because some stuff happened it's a good way to get into where we live to so they filled it in.
• 36:35
  I use that a little bit in my practice because it was a perfect little tiny liminal space that didn't jump out it's like oh look at this is creepy.
• 36:45
  That's so cool.
• 36:47
  Instead of the sense of like a very concerted effort at being creepy like the back rooms it's something right in between or kind of the sense of having one foot on either side of a line.
• 37:00
  Or one foot in the living world and one in the dead world what is it the other side.
• 37:06
  Exactly that's what I was going to say is you probably will say it better than me let me shut up.
• 37:12
  There is a term in witchcraft called hedge witch that sometimes people misinterpret that as meaning like like a witch of like plants and hedges and
• 37:25
  but it's actually a term meaning someone who's practices involve like the middle world and sometimes that's like the astral or sometimes it's a little bit of people don't really like the term necromancy.
• 37:44
  Because that's also a Hollywood thing but in a softer sense of like speaking with spirits and having very purposeful dreams and some practices involving flying.
• 37:59
  That's the hedge witch because in like northern Europe I think it's especially in England England Scotland they would have big massive fields but then instead of just fences they would have something called the hedge where it would be a strip of trees where it was a lot more dense than everything else.
• 38:21
  So liminal is also very much a kind of like the hedge in traditional English countryside where you walk into there and it's almost like a different world and then you walk out on the other side and then it's just another field and you might be in your neighbor's cow field or something.
• 38:41
  Is that what like the the gaff of Homer Simpson going into the head she's like going into the other side is that what he's in a liminal space.
• 38:51
  I can never see that different I can never see that the same I mean it thank you for that you're welcome he's in a liminal that's like that's your new symbol for a liminal space.
• 39:00
  Yes it is very much like that it's and I I call the deck the liminal deck because even if I say negative things all about like all this is too traditional people get very bogged down and just all of the rules tradition isn't bad by itself it's when you kind of fixate on that and you don't acknowledge how it affects things now.
• 39:23
  So I like to take what still works from tradition but combine it with new ideas so the liminal deck is very much my design toward keeping things familiar enough where people who like tarot will still recognize it as something that they've used before but there's a lot that's different in the deck where hopefully people who are in a really like cozy comfortable space in tarot.
• 39:52
  And so that's a comfortable space in tarot can still use it and think to themselves well what if it's also this or have different ideas and kind of at least peak over the fence of things other things that are more possible.
• 40:06
  I also love that there are so many different decks and different even if it's a traditional deck it has it could have like there's so many different artworks so many different styles.
• 40:17
  I love having multiple different decks because like I kind of intuitively choose one for how I'm feeling or whatever story we're talking about or I have if I'm reading for somebody else they can choose the deck.
• 40:32
  So it's kind of nice just to have ones that you can choose that kind of fit what you're reading.
• 40:39
  So if you describe that just now it kind of reminds me of when people tell stories of going over to the grandparents house and their grandmother might have a whole bunch of different tea cups or something like that in their cabinet.
• 40:53
  And then different different grandkids get to pick different ones and everybody's going to have their own vibes and they might change them up every now and then.
• 41:04
  I try not to be just straight up derogatory about traditional decks and other traditional things but it's kind of like you said most people that I know who are into tarot it's kind of like tattoos like it's very hard to have just one right once the kick start goes live I do say it in some of the video which I worked very hard on and it has some some vibes that I also like to share.
• 41:33
  But I try to make it clear that I don't want to ever try and set myself up as an authority on things but I definitely want to contribute towards things I try to add something rather than just claw at something else and take it away.
• 41:52
  It's always better to add to the world right then just like replace things.
• 41:57
  I try to add to my other people's perspective to like I like to see as many different perspectives as possible I think it's really important.
• 42:04
  I definitely agree with that my brain is chaos so it doesn't always stick.
• 42:08
  Same but yeah it's if more people entertained the different ideas or at least tried new things and I think we'd be a lot better off.
• 42:19
  Yeah.
• 42:21
  Do you have a tarot deck right now would you like to pull a card? I know exactly where the night veil deck that our reference actually is.
• 42:28
  Awesome.
• 42:29
  And it's the kind of old where the string broke and everything but I still have the bag.
• 42:34
  Oh I love that.
• 42:36
  Do you do tarot with other people or for other people often?
• 42:40
  I do have a few listings like on my coffee page I have small readings and then I do offer the really large Celtic Cross spread.
• 42:54
  Most of the time it's for myself and I used to do readings at my booth but because of numbers and other like logistics and my attention span I don't do that in person anymore
• 43:09
  unless there's a helper with me just in case that's yeah.
• 43:13
  Something explodes and we have to chase paper and stuff like that.
• 43:17
  Yeah and we usually just either like pull a card for whatever we were talking about or whatever somebody needs to hear who's listening right now like you don't specifically have to read for me.
• 43:28
  Okay. I do like the idea of I sometimes I do unconventional readings where either someone is holding a question in their head or just a very general reading something that when people are new to tarot I try to let them know that yes or no questions are not a good idea because it's not supposed to be like a magical.
• 43:56
  But if the interpretation of a card or a spread of cards makes them think of something then it's probably something that they need to think about.
• 44:06
  Yeah that's kind of what I always tell people to like we can pretty much relate any card to something that's going on in your question just give me a little time to think about it like I can I can piece something together for you.
• 44:19
  So I think what I'm going to do is do a reading for anyone who's listening and it might actually be a case of it applies to a bunch of different people.
• 44:33
  So that's why I kind of wanted to describe it as if it makes you think of something then it's probably something that you need to think about.
• 44:43
  Okay so let's all send our energy from the past and the future and the present.
• 44:49
  And for you that can see just I don't know if they make this deck anymore because they did like a different version but that's the back of it right there.
• 44:59
  Ooh it's an eyeball.
• 45:03
  Let's go with one and because we have also talked a lot about booth work today.
• 45:13
  I'm going to go with the bottom card from a basic shuffle I just did.
• 45:17
  Okay the caboose.
• 45:20
  So I have two of Wands reversed.
• 45:24
  That's weird we literally were talking about two of Wands weren't we?
• 45:29
  Yes that's in the liminal deck that we'll be running on Kickstarter starting on Wednesday.
• 45:37
  My version of the two of Wands is the person that is very heavily masked up has a black hoodie and everything but their eyes are both glowing.
• 45:48
  Shiny glow-y eyes.
• 45:50
  Right it's very much having foresight where it's the second step of some kind of journey something moral or philosophical kind of a take action but you don't have to finish it right now.
• 46:12
  I'm going to take this step so reversed I would mostly interpret that as there's something that you could be doing that you do have the values toward doing it.
• 46:25
  But there's some kind of excuse that you have that isn't necessarily malicious but deeper down than however you normally talk to yourself you kind of know that it's not a very good excuse or you could do something to get past it eventually.
• 46:41
  So it's not necessarily a hey you're not doing this or you're a horrible person it's more of a take a minute you probably know that you probably know that this this reason is not as solid as you think.
• 46:59
  So there's there's some way that you can take a next step in something that you really value.
• 47:06
  You're just really hesitating right now can you just describe it to because for people who can't see it the podcast that this illustration is from is set in like Southwest United States so it's kind of desert Arizona ish.
• 47:23
  And there's a big giant crag in the ground a crowbar like it probably big enough to be like a tourist attraction like take a hike and everything.
• 47:34
  But everything is glowing green and in context of the story it's called radon canyon actually.
• 47:44
  Oh okay that makes sense the green.
• 47:47
  And it is billed as a tourist attraction so I would kind of put that hand in hand with if you're going to go there you would better keep going.
• 47:57
  It could be fine but you got to keep going so reversed into of ones especially with the artwork that I have in here kind of paired with how I tend to interpret that card is.
• 48:11
  You know exactly what's going on you see the glow around you you know that you are in some place called radon canyon.
• 48:21
  So why aren't you still moving and you don't have to panic and move but you should probably go ahead and take the next steps and for everybody out there who also has ADHD I wish you the best of luck in figuring out what is you forgot because I'm trying to do that too.
• 48:41
  I was like kind of I was laughing like go ahead take the next step it's not that hard because I was listening to a podcast the other day that was talking about like just do the first step of something like plan out the entire steps or just think about what the very first step would be and just do that.
• 49:01
  Like just take the first step and so I'm like okay now you're saying like okay just take the next step and I'm like but the way I just took the first one.
• 49:13
  I can understand that that's even people who approach tarot as more of a psychological thing.
• 49:20
  I've had experiences with people who we'd get on the same page like yes I'm I'm pagan you don't have to be we can both use tarot and talk about it.
• 49:30
  I've had some interesting experiences with people where they would pull a card from their own deck and it would be something like wheel of fortune and then we talk about that and then I would shuffle and pull a card from my deck and it would be wheel of fortune.
• 49:47
  I love when that should happen stuff happens and we might both be partially incorrect it might be something that's not psychological it might not be something that's pagan.
• 49:59
  But in that moment something is happening.
• 50:03
  Yeah we've I've had never had that happen specifically but it seems like whenever like I draw a card or my and my guess draws a card or sometimes one of them had drew like a run.
• 50:15
  It seems to be like the interpretations kind of go together or they're like perfectly matched or paired like have the same type of themes.
• 50:25
  Or like the same imagery and sometimes I'm like dang like how does that even work we're like over the computer and we're pulling like the same kind of card with the same things that's the and it touches a little more on the the wittery side of things but.
• 50:43
  I'm also very much a proponent of the idea that not everything is external magic but sometimes it kind of pokes energy that we already have inside us that.
• 51:00
  Kind of tunes us toward each other I guess would be the closest way I could describe that.
• 51:07
  Yeah if it was simply external things then there would be much less that for example worked through the computer screen.
• 51:16
  But people can connect a lot deeper than is often promoted when people are very interested in the topic it sparks more conversations of well what is energy like how do people connect.
• 51:35
  How do I use the past to influence the future versus about a rock and it's blue that means X Y C or you could buy a rock and someone can tell you it's for that and then this rock is telling me it's for this completely other thing and that's fine too.
• 51:53
  I can also talk at length of like list of things that people go by I tend not to gravitate towards like which craft groups and things because I'm definitely the person who sees a list and just goes why yeah suspicious but.
• 52:15
  From my perspective approaching occult subjects that's more of a how does it interact with your own energy.
• 52:24
  Like one rock that you really hate might do wonderful things for me one tea that's great for you might be really disgusting and put me in a bad mood.
• 52:34
  So everybody has to for an example find the tarot deck that resonates with them don't just pop over to the nearest store that carries them and get the best seller like order the generic on Amazon.
• 52:49
  Oh yeah I've never done that before ever like don't look at me what do you mean.
• 52:55
  That's a choice if it's accessible that's it is the first deck I ever bought myself I think was from Amazon but you guys can't judge me because I just didn't know yet I wasn't fully immersed in this world and you know yeah it's I obviously I am an independent seller and artisan and everything like that I was still poke around in spirit of Halloween.
• 53:23
  But it's still if I see something it I try to consciously think okay is this the choice that I'm really going to make yes exactly and then also can I make another choice and support maybe someone smaller as well also this did remind me of like one of the rules that I hate that everyone always says about tarot is that you have to be gifted your tarot deck and you can't buy your own.
• 53:49
  I can understand some of the historical context of that I don't know how true it is but it's plausible at least there was a time and I'm sure there's still some places that if you go out and just buy your own tarot deck that could put you in a lot of danger.
• 54:06
  But if you are gifted a tarot deck that means you are pretty much in a mostly safe space or you at least know someone safe enough that you can mention you would like to have a tarot deck and then they can go out and pick one up for you.
• 54:22
  I don't think it's necessary though at all.
• 54:24
  I don't think it's totally necessary it's if that directly applies to someone I can understand it but as a blanket rule I don't think that's really relevant anymore.
• 54:35
  I feel like it kind of sort of probably came from maybe when they weren't as popular in the stores and you couldn't just go out and buy one like maybe you had a family deck that was passed down or whatever but I don't think it was say that too.
• 54:47
  I don't think it should ever be a rule rule so definitely like if you're interested in this liminal deck go on the Kickstarter and donate to it so you can buy it.
• 54:56
  I would help for yourself.
• 54:58
  A lot of things so much it's of course I can talk also for really long time about how it would add great things to the shop and things that I don't have to draw again I could keep getting prints and make them accessible to people but it's also instead of kind of just sitting and dwelling on things that I don't like in
• 55:21
  tarot subjects and spheres of things I have decided to go through a lot of time and effort to add something to add another alternative that traditional can be fine but I always want to encourage people to try something new and something that doesn't hold your hand something that doesn't really spoon feed you.
• 55:49
  And the structure is the same but there are enough changes where hopefully it helps people think a little bit more of their specific situation.
• 56:04
  Yeah give them a little different perspective maybe exactly.
• 56:08
  Is that like the biggest place people could find you as Instagram?
• 56:12
  The biggest places are Instagram I try to stay aware of not everybody uses that all the time so the main areas are Instagram the main website blackboard parlor.
• 56:24
  I also have a YouTube channel that I had a lot of technical difficulties earlier but once those are ironed out I can spend more time on it that will be more active.
• 56:35
  There used to technical difficulties around here so if they're one of our listeners they'll be fine make me feel better mainly Instagram but if I have a comment or some kind of feedback on pretty much anywhere else you can find me things are just small enough I think where I really love to be able to take the time to actually respond to that is.
• 56:59
  I don't think I will wake up anytime soon and there's like 10,000 comments and things like that hopefully at that point you never know I don't know.
• 57:10
  But I really like to have feedback and have a back and forth pretty much anywhere but Instagram is the easiest place to do that.
• 57:17
  And you are at that is at whiskey WHISKEY Terra T.E. R.R.A. foxtrot I was trying to say were will I'm just renaming you think of like the pointy orange were fox somewhere but that's yes speaking of ADHD but you're going to have to add a werewolf to your deck.
• 57:45
  I think there's your reminding me of things in my college sketchbooks.
• 57:50
  Oh I need to make notes on later but maybe I'm just reading your mind maybe reading my sketchbooks terrifying place to be one day if the stars align for it I would love to put out a very small line of whiskey because I don't drink a lot but I know what is my favorites.
• 58:14
  But you liminal whiskey oh yeah that sounds like a potion that would do interesting things.
• 58:22
  It does whiskey is kind of liminal if you think about it because it just sits in a barrel.
• 58:28
  Irish whiskey at least it uses Pete from the bogs so if that's very liminal if someone says like oh whiskey takes tastes like dirt you should ask them if they're actually a fan of whiskey because if someone likes it they might say it tastes like dirt.
• 58:43
  And it's fine and if they don't they just like that is very liminal it could go either way.
• 58:50
  Have a creepy ass day.
• 58:53
  Thank you so much that was so much fun.
• 58:56
  That was great.
• 58:59
  So when we were I messaged you I think after or you message me I can't remember who message you after we met.
• 59:07
  Because I like asked you if you wanted to be interviewed all the podcast and whatever so it's like reaching out to you I think.
• 59:13
  But we were chatting a little bit and you were saying something about your tent collapsed and everything was chaos.
• 59:21
  And I like fully knew who I was talking to like I knew you were the terror the person who was creating the terror deck like fully knew who you were.
• 59:29
  But then I like responded and I was like oh my god do you fuck with tarot like this seems like a tower card situation and then I was so.
• 59:38
  That is perfectly fine I think I said something to that effect it's I try not to just frame everything in terms of ADHD but it's I was very late diagnosis in life.
• 59:53
  So sometimes when things like that happen with other people I try to be very vocally understanding.