Update:
The Baddeley Tarot is going to be published! A full 78 card deck including a book with explanations, history, research and of course readings. It will be published by Blue Angel and hopefully available in shops world wide at the end of 2024, beginning of 2025! If you are interested to be on the pre-order list, fill out the form below!
This is a project that I call the Baddeley Tarot.
It is a culmination of my years of study of symbolism, (art) history, esoteric doctrine and myth. I wanted to apply all that I had learned through the years to one project. To hone my draughtsmanship skills I chose one of the most celebrated draughtsman of the Renaissance – Albrecht Dürer – as my standard and set him at the back of my mind, if not to emulate his style then to learn from him.
The structure of the deck is based upon the old Italian and French Tarot decks of the 15th – 17th century but with my own additions and subtractions. I have tried where possible to stay true to the original meaning of the cards, and where the meaning is no longer clear, to research each card until it’s true meaning is found and then express this through the choice of image.
At first I thought that what we know as Tarot is the corrupted remains of something once pure and complete and I searched for that one true archetype from which all were copied, to reconstruct the last back to the first. Alas, this was never the case. There was no first draught. Just variations upon a theme with no “real” original; no real beginning as the ideas that make Tarot fade into the mists of history.
The Tarot is what happens when you interpret a deck of cards symbolically. If you give each card meaning, above and beyond what was intended by the card makers, the deck can be read as a book. The 2 of cups in a card deck is simply that. But in the Tarot the number 2 becomes a symbol. It represents something else, such as duality for example and therefore can be interpreted oracularly. Likewise, a cup can become associated with other ideas: a container, a receiver, femininity, healing nourishing, etc. the richness of the associations are only limited by the reader. Combine these two sets of ideas and there might be a new one. As everyone’s associations are different so the laws and codes of every Tarot reader are different. Each has her or his own way of reading, of making links and associations.
This deck is designed to include a wide range of associations that can feed into the whole. I have – or rather I intend to – include number as symbol, the Ptolemaic order of the planets, The Tree of life, the Phoenician alphabet, the zodiac and many more archetypal themes into the system so that they can contribute meaning to each set of images.
The images shown here are mostly the Trumps, a set of images that were added in the early renaissance to the card deck to increase it’s depth and interest. They have a rich and interesting history that has contributed to their fascinating symbolism, some of which is still a mystery even to scholars of Tarot.
These images are all in black and white which is how they were conceived. The medium is Ink on paper. I am intending however to colour them eventually. If you have any ideas, thoughts or comments about these works, please contact me