Tag Archives: art

Tarotcast

Tarotcast for Week of September 17, 2017

Friedrich Schroder Sonnenstern Outsider Art

The definition of art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as a painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. The artwork above is by Friedrich Schroder Sonnenstern. He is a representative of Outsider Art or Art Brut. Outsider Art is art done by self taught art makers who have had no contact with the mainstream art world. Jean Dubuffet collected and brought this “raw art” into the mainstream art world and called it the Collection de l’art brut, which is now housed in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Outsider art now encompasses a variety of art forms like Folk Art, Visionary Art, Marginal Art, Naive Art, and Visionary Environments. It is interesting that even though the definition of art is all encompassing. We still try to categorize it, so we can push against the category that becomes the new form and to once again color outside the lines.

P.S. Remember, signs with * it’s a big week for you. I have attached works of Friedrich which may or may not define your card.

Aries – Four of Wands – The Four of Wands’ lessons are around the paradox of feeling at home while feeling your freedom. This is the challenge of this card feeling at home with your decisions, your life, especially when they are unorthodox at least in the eyes of others. This week work on feeling comfortable and proud when you let your freak flag fly.

 

Taurus – Ace of Wands – The Ace of Wands proclaims this is a great week to start projects, explore new places, and follow your passions. The only challenge is to be aware that all this energy and enthusiasm you have could plow over the people around you. Remember to share your empathy along with your passion this week.
Continue reading Tarotcast for Week of September 17, 2017 →

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Tarotcast for the Week of September 3, 2017

Happy Birthday month Virgos!

Jean-Pierre Jeunet birthday is today. I love all of the films that he has, in combination, written and directed.: Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement, MicMacs, and The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet. He also did a short film called Foutaises -Things I Like, Things I Hate which I also love.

These movies have a gloomy quality to them which I find to be part of Virgo’s character. However, it is not the darkness that makes these films or people great. It is the contrast of deep themes of death and despair told through absurd and funny vignettes of love and life. This is one of the qualities of Virgo’s dharma to see the suffering but find the beauty, love and laughter that lives along side it. This is even the quality of Virgo’s birth month. The end of summer and the beginning of fall, where autumn portrays death in the beauty of fall colors.

P.S. Remember, signs with * it’s a big week for you.

Aries – Six of Wands – This week find a stopping point in a project/life. The Six of Wands is challenge you to take a breather before jumping into the next phase. Take some time to pat yourself on the back for all your hard work and the progresses you have made. You deserve it.

*Taurus – Wheel of Fortune – Time to take a turn at the wheel this week. The Wheel challenges you to take advantage of a change of fortune in your life. This can be good or even a bad set of circumstances that can catapult you out of what has been a redundant cycle. The big thing is change is here so grasp the brass ring and get off the carousel.
Continue reading Tarotcast for the Week of September 3, 2017 →

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Tarotcast for Week of August 27, 2017

Andreas Gursky uses large format photography and a higher point of view to capture our environments giving us a different perspective than where we normally journey. His architectural photos show how we try to order and create symmetry in our world. But even in his subjects where we think we would find randomness, by pulling us back to a wider perspective, our eyes and minds try to find order to our chaotic world.

The smaller format below does not do Gursky’s work justice, so I suggest you go to his website.

P.S. Remember, signs with * it’s a big week for you.

Aries – Eight of Pentacles – Back to a regular work week with the Eight of Pentacles. This card advises you to focus on work. If you do, you will find yourself in the flow more often than not. Your challenge is improve your skills and center your attention to master your work.

Taurus – Ten of Wands – The Ten of Wands’ lesson is about putting too much on your plate. This week your challenge is to drop or at the very least put on the backburner one project. You have too many things to do and are feeling overwhelmed. And of course with your Taurus work ethic, you can do it all, but is that how you want your everyday life to look like?
Continue reading Tarotcast for Week of August 27, 2017 →

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Tarotcast for Week of August 13, 2017

This week we are between two eclipses. Eclipses foretell beginnings, endings and change in general. So I picked the kinetic art of Theo Jansen to represent the movement in the universe. He calls his creations Strandbeasts. I recommend clicking on to the hyperlink it is pretty amazing.

P.S. Remember, signs with * it’s a big week for you. This opening is brief and no individual pictures for signs because I am also moving this week. Light and Love see you all next week.

Aries – Eight of Swords – The past two weeks have asked you to slow down, heal, and craft some structure in your life to protect yourself and the life you want to create. This week the Eight of Swords is having you look at what boundaries your thoughts form that hold you back from living the life you want.   We are between eclipses and this is the perfect time to slough off anything that isn’t working for you.

Taurus – Five of Wands – This week can be filled with a chaotic energy, some is yours and the rest is everyone else’s. We are between eclipses where things end and new beginnings occur.   Your challenge is to realize that the only true control you have is over is your own stuff. This is a week of patience and presences.

*Gemini – Justice – The Justice card advises you to think logically and with an end game in mind this week. The two eclipses lend energy to endings and beginnings during this time, and this energy can complicate and distract your thinking. Your challenge is to keep your choices and problem solving as two pronged as you can.

Cancer – Eight of Wands – The Eight of Wands heralds that there is information out there for you this week. Keep your eyes, ears and mind open for synchronicities and messages from the Universe,  because the eclipses these messages are around endings and beginnings.   Remember you need one to have the other.

Leo – Four of Cups – We are betwixt the two eclipses where changes abound, and the one coming up is in your sign next week. So to prepare you the Four of Cups has shown up. This card advises that this week you can keep to yourself and do some inner belly gazing. But it’s challenges is after looking within you will need to look outwards.

*Virgo – Judgment – This week we are between the two eclipses – a time of change, and you got the card of evolution, Judgment. This is a great card to get with the energies that are out there right now. You can make some major shifts in your life and have the universe support it.   In a simple way, this can look like changing your paint color in bedroom from a energetic yellow to a more calming blue and you find that you sleep better. Or in a more complex way you meditate on, say…. your heart chakra and change it from a dusty rose to a hot pink. Your challenge is that change begins with your actions in the universe, not the other way around.

Libra – Four of Wands – We are now between the two eclipses, which like your last week’s tarotcast heralds endings and new beginnings. And with change brings a bit of chaos. This week the Four of Wands challenges you to deal with the disorder outside by bringing order to your home.

Scorpio – Three of Wands – To prepare for the new moon and eclipse next week, the Three of Wands is advising you to take a step back from your life and take stock of what you will need for the new beginnings approaching after August 21st. Your only challenge is to hold of starting anything new until ALL of your ducks are in a row.

Sagittarius – Ten of Wands – This week your ship has come in, but now you will have to cart all the goods home. Being between the two eclipses this month has given you a glimpse into what needs to be ended and started to make your life happen with more ease. But there is still work to be done until you can really enjoy your bounty. Your challenge is to figure out what is worth carrying into the new life you desire. This card recommends that you need to lighten your load.

Capricorn – King of Wands – You were clued into the change the eclipses are bring with the Tower card you got last week. So as the solar eclipse comes closer you all are a step ahead of the rest of us. Where the past weeks you have been contemplating of what, where and how you want that change to affect your life, this week the King of Wands is challenging to walk the talk. So, your test is to start doing one thing that will create the change that you seek.

Aquarius – Page of Pentacles – We are between two eclipses and you are trying to take advantage of the winds of change. Your work continues on but fairs better if you are both ears and hands on. This week there is a lot to learn from your environment. Your challenge is to put what you think you know aside and become the student of change.

*Pisces – Hangman – We are between the two eclipses and this is a great card for being in between the endings of the lunar eclipse and the beginnings of the solar eclipse August 21st. The Hangman asks you to take a break or detour from your life/work to gain knowledge from a different perspective. This can look as simple as mediating for 15 minutes each day, doing some lucid dreaming, or even taking a walk out in nature. This is not a week to make life changes or even make big decisions. This is a week of contemplation. The challenge is getting yourself in a different “environment” to shift your mind so you can see alternative possibilities to all the possible futures you can  create.

 

May light be on you, around you, and within you,

Nina

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Tarotcast Week of August 6, 2017

The Talking Skull, above, and the sculptures below are by the artist Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller. Fuller is considered to be a forerunner of the Harlem Renaissance. After art school in Philadelphia she moved to Paris and became a protégé of Auguste Rodin. In Paris, her artistic ability was nurtured and exalted.  However, on her return to the US her art was considered “domestic,” and she was shunned by the Philadelphia art scene. ( I am not exactly sure what “domestic” means but a polite way of being racist and sexist in the early 1900’s in the Northeast.)

Fuller’s work was not limited to the reflection of the African American experience. For instance, she made a religious sculpture annually, but many of her pieces were political in nature and some did express the African American experience at the turn of the 1900 century.  I see that sculpture above as not only a way Meta spoke to the world about a certain people’s history but also how she understood and beautiful articulated the complexity of emotions of a human questioning death.

P.S. Remember, signs with * it’s a big week for you.

 

*Aries – High Priest –  Last week, The Star card advised you to slow down and do some much needed healing and breathing. This week the High Priest is challenging you to continue the intentions of last week, but to do so you will need to create boundaries and structure in your life. Remember the big rule in air flight: put your oxygen mask on yourself before putting it on others.

 


Taurus – Three of Wands – You know last week when the Queen of Swords asked you how to make you your deepest desire happen? Well, you get another week to work on that. Last week you tried to get what you wanted done, and you found that you didn’t have the resources, including time. The Three of Wands is giving you another week to set up the circumstances to get those deepest desires to sail into port with more ease.
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Tarotcast for Week of July 30, 2017

The above collage art is from May Wilson‘s Ridiculous Portrait series. May Wilson left school in ninth grade and went to work as a stenographer. By age 20 she had gotten married and became a housewife in the suburbs of Baltimore Maryland. With her children grown and in her forties, she decided to take a few correspondence courses in the arts which launched her art career.

In 1956, she was introduced to Ray Johnson and became part of his mail art circle. But it wasn’t until  after her divorce at age 61 and a move to New York City did she blossom again. Through her art work and famous parties she became known as the Grandma Moses of the Underground. She is an inspiration that at any age we can recreate who we are if we do not take ourselves too seriously.

P.S. Remember, signs with * it’s a big week for you.  With your tarotcast are images from May Wilson’s Snowflake and Ridiculous Portrait series.

*Aries – The Star – The Star card is here this week to get you all to slow down and do some much needed healing and breathing. When we slow down we notice the “simpler” things in life that are essential and how amazing they are. For example, the stars are heavenly bodies that can bring us awe, and in the same instance we are made of the same elements. As Carl Sagan said The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff. So your challenge this week is to be as amazed at your existence as you are in the stars’.

Taurus – Queen of Swords – The Queen of Swords is the card of self-truth and realization. This card challenges you to answer honestly – what do you want to happen this week. What is your deepest desire? Rest, happiness, love? And then she challenges you to strategize how to make that happen. Go to bed at a decent hour, make time to hang with friends or family, or make a romantic meal (even if it just with your cat or dog – I can guarantee they will give you some love if you share your dinner with them.)
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Tarotcast for Week of July 9, 2017

balloon art

Fourth of July parties and parades always seem to have with them the clown that makes balloon animals. I loved them as a kid, but now the sound of the balloons being twisted into shapes makes me run the other way. Artist Masayoshi Matsumoto has taken this children’s party sideshow to an artistic level. He sculpts with rubber and air creating people, toys and a variety of animals such as insects, octopi and water buffalo.

It is amazing to think about balloons and how they keep their shape. Air likes to expand and move. When we blow air into a balloon we are pressurizing it. As we blow more air molecules into a smaller space, the air molecules’ increasing density and movement creates pressure against the balloon, expanding it as the balloon’s sides push back against air.

This action rings true with us too. When the pressure is just right in our lives we expand,  become more resilient and flexible.  How each of us deals with pressure shapes us into our unique selves. However, just like a balloon too much pressure can make us pop. So try to see the pressures in your life as your partners, but remember to gauge the amount you allow in.

P.S. Remember, signs with * it’s a big week for you.

Aries – King of Swords – The King of Swords’ lesson is strategy. This week you will need to use your cunning and good communication skills to gain an advantage. The challenge is that even though you can see the gray areas in an argument you need to make a decision.

Taurus – Eight of Wands – Last week your life needed structure to get things done. This week the Eight of Wands brings a more go with the flow approach to your days. There will be some vital information coming at you this week, so be flexible with your time and keep your eyes and ears open.
Continue reading Tarotcast for Week of July 9, 2017 →