Hey Frank! Thank you for agreeing to do this. I’m sitting in our local maker space today, listening to the sloshy wet movement of cars and people outside; the sky an uninviting palette of greys. Wonder if it’s the same down there in Carmarthenshire, and how you’re doing in this last thrust of winter? Heh, …
An excerpt from Charlie's new publication, the Gay Marseille, introducing the classic Tarot de Marseille and its role as a tarot deck for the people.
"I started off my career by making alien animals and sci-fi worlds as an escape from everyday life and to heal from the brutality of the world. But now that I’m older, I feel brave enough to explore this in my work."
"Home to me feels like a return. So much of the path to liberation is the coming home, the return to the full potential of what we are and I find that home is the container that allows us to unfold in this way."
"My love of tarot is related to this love of old things, this connection I feel with every printmaker and tarot reader that has come before me. So for me, letterpress and tarot go together quite naturally, and thus the Tarot of Sorts was born."
"It is a deck that speaks softly, but strikes deep with its insight. It is a deck that acknowledges the politics that govern our lives, but remembers that we must fight to solve the problems they cause – and we do not have to fight alone."
"I believe we are spiritual beings, but we can't bypass that whole 'having a human experience' part and everything that comes with it."
"I love the way sound can transport us, a portal into our inner landscapes and wisdom, an opportunity to learn to listen more deeply to ourselves."
"I believe that resistance and revolution can be seeded in art. Allowing our brains to experiment with different futures can help those futures feel possible."
Charlie is a non-binary spirit in a human home who's gay for other queers! Based in Portland, Oregon, Charlie is the artist and author behind the Fifth Spirit Tarot.
"I imagine the Shrine of the Black Medusa as a space where you can be your full self, with all of your trauma, faults, charms, and questions"
On creating the Guided Hand Tarot, a subversive, queer, collage deck inspired by Hilda af Klint and Hannah Hoch.
